
sr-^; 



:,;iS 



^^^^L&^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



©fjaiir^— 6n{ti}ri3{)t '^a. 

Shelt.:£tk.- ^ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



1 



H'. Vi 





^^i^Si 






m 



11 „n 



iiililiiiiiiiiiiliiyii 




m 

if: I 



THE 



LIFE, TRAVELS, AND LITERARY CAREER 



OF 



BAYARD TAYLOR 



' Crown Love, crown Truth wlieii first her brow appears, 
And crown the hero when his deeds are done: 
The Poet's leaves are gathered one by one, 
In the slow process of the doubtful years, 
Who seeks too eagerly, he shall not find : 
Who seeking- not pursues with single mind 
Art's lofty aim, to him will she accord. 
At her appointed time, the sure reward." 



BY / 



RUSSELL H. CONWELL 





CHICAGO NEW YORK 
THE WERNER COMPANY 






C^.^ 



COPYRIGHT iSSi 

By D. LOTHROP & COMPANY 



COPYRIGHT 1895 

By the WERNER COMPANY 



Taylor 



THE MISTRESS OF MY HOME. 



My te:irs were on the pages as I rear 

The touching close: 1 made the story mine. 
Within whose lieart, long plighted to the dead, 
Love built his living shrine." 

' For she is, l<>8t; but she, the later oride, 
' Who came my mined fortune to restore; 
Back from the desert wanders at my side, 
▲uu leiids me home once more." 

—Poet's Journal 



s 



i 



PREFACE 



It is a solemn yet pleasant duty ;o compile in comprehen- 
sive order the records of a life so eventful and influential as 
that of Bayard Taylor. Pleasant, because there is no task 
more satisfactory than that of recounting the deeds of a 
virtuous, industrious, heroic life. No text-book of morals, 
or of general history, is so effective in educating the young 
as the annals of well-spent years, gathered for that purpose. 
There is more or less .nfluence in fables and mythological 
tales- and there is considerable power in a.well written, 
skilfully plotted work of fiction; but the direct and unavoid- 
able appeal of a noble life, which closed with honor and 
deserved renown, is far more potent and permanent in the 
culture and reformation of the world, than all other forms of 
intellectual and moral quickening. No apology is needed 
for writing such a biography. It would be inexcusable to 
leave the world in need of it. While it may not serve as 
well as the author desires in preserving an interest in Mr. 
TaNlor's writings, and in presenting to the American people 
his' most encouraging example, it will at least be a sincere 
tribute to Mr. Taylor's memory from the writer, who in 
foreign and inhospitable lands recieved from him most gen- 
erous and patient assistance. 



6 PREFACE. 

i 

The author cannot do less than acknowledge, in this 
place, his great obligations to the father and mother of Mr. 
Taylor, to Mrs. Annie Carey, his sister, and to Dr. Franklin 
Taylor, his cousin, for their generous courtesy and most 
important assistance in gathering the facts for this volume. 

All the poetical quotations in this book are from Taylor's 
poetical works, 



I 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

Mr. Taylor's Career. — Difficulty and Importance of the Wcrk. — 
The Romance of his Life. — Variable Experience. — His Saccesi 
as Novelist, Orator, Traveller, and Poet, . . . .13 

CHAPTER II. 

German Ancestry. — English Ancestry. — The Pennsylvania Ger- 
mans. — The Quakers. — How his Forefathers came to America. 

— The Effect of Intermixture of Races. — The Hereditary Traits 
seen in his Books, 17 

CHAPTER III. 

Birth at Kennett Square. — Old Homestead. — The Quaker Church. 
— The Village. — His Father's Store. — Life on the Farm. — Mis- 
chievous School-boy. — Inclination to write Poetry. — Practical 
Joker. — Studious Youth. — His Parents. — His Brothers and 
Sisters, 21 

CHAPTER IV. 

Unfitness for Farming. — Love for Books. — Goes to the Academy. 

— Appearance as a Student. — Love for Geography and History. 

— Enters a Printing-office. — Genius for Sketching. — Corre- 
spondence with Literary Men.— Their Advice. — Hon. Charles 
Miner. — Putnam's Tourist Guide. — Determination to go to 
Europe. — Dismal Prospects, 29 

CHAPTER V. 
Visited by his Cousin. — Decides to go to Europe with his Cousin. — 
Correspondence ^ith Travellers. — Lack of Money. — Unshaken 
Confidence. — Publication of Ximena, 36 

CHAPTER VL 

The Contest with Enemies. — Departure from Philadelphia. — 
Friendship of N. P. Willis, — Discouraging Reception. — Inter- 
view with Horace Greeley. — Searching for a Vessel. — Steerage 
Passage for Liverpool. — Fellow Passengers. — The Voyage. — 
The Beauty of the Sea. — Landing at Liverpool, . . 42 

CHAPTER VII. 
Departure from Liverpool. —Travels Second-Class. —Arrival at Port 
Rush. — The Giant's Causeway. —Lost and in Danger. — Dun- 
luce Castle. — Effect upon the Travellers. — Condition of the 
Irish. — Arrival at Dumbarton. — Scaling the Castle Walls.— 
Walk to Loch Lomond. — Ascent of Ben Lomond. — Loch 
Katrine. — Visit to Stirling, ..,,,.. 50 



8 CONTEl^TS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Visit to the Home of Burus. — The Poet's Cottage. — The Cele- 
bration. — Walks and Rides in the Rain. — Edinburgh. — Its 
Associations. — The Teachings of History. — Home of Drnm- 
moud. — Abbotsford. — Melrose. — Jedbnrgh Abbey. — New- 

castle-on-Tyne, 59 

CHAPTER IX. 
V'sit in London. — Exhibition of Relics. — The Lessons of Travel. 

— Historical Association. — London to Ostend. — The Cathedral 
at Aix-la-Chapelle. — The Great Cathedral at Cologne. — Voy- 
age np the Rbine. — Lougfellow's *' Hyperion." — Visit to 
Frankfort. — Kind Friends. — Reaches Heidelberg. — Climbing 
the Mountains, 67 

CHAPTER X. 
Study in Frankfort. — Lack of Money. — Different Effect ot Want 
on Travellers. — Bayard's Privations. — Again sets out on Foot. — 
Visit to the Hartz Mountains. — The Brocken. — Scenes in 
"Faust." — Locality in Literature. — The Battle-field at Leip- 
sic. — Auerbach's Cellar, 77 

CHAPTER XL 
Pictures at Dresden. — Raphaers Madonna. — Bayard's Art Educa- 
tion. — His Exalted Ideas of Art. — His Enthusiasm. — Visits 
Bohemia. — Stay in Prague. — The Curiosities of Vienna. — 
Tomb of Beethoven. — Respect for Religion. — Listens to 
Strauss. — View of Lintz. — Munich and its Decorations. — The 
Home of Schiller. — Poetic Landscapes, and Charming People. 

— Statue by Thorwaldsen. — Walk to Heidelberg, . . 8.'i 

CHAPTER XII. 

Starts for Switzerland and Italy. — First View of the Alps. — The 
Falls of the Rhine. — Zurich. — A Poet's Home. — Lake Lucerne. 

— Goethe's Cottage. — Scenes in the Life of William Tell. - 
Ascent of the Alps at St. Gothard. — Descent into Italy.— 
The Cathedral at Milan. — Bayard's Characteristics. — Tramp 
to Genoa. — Visits Leghorn and Pisa. — Lovely Florence. — De- 
lightful Visits. — The Home of Art, 95 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Visit to Rome. — Attractions of its Ruins. — Bayard's Persistent 
Searches. — His Limited Means. — Sights and Experiences. — 
Journey to Marseilles. — Walks to Lyons. — Desperate Circum- 
stances. — Stay in Paris. — Employment of his Time. — De 
parture for London. — Failure to obtain Money or Work. ^ 
Seeks a Friend. — Obtains Help from a Stranger. — Voyage >:> 
New York. — Arrival Home, ... . . . ^io 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Edits a Country Newspaper. — The " Phceuixvilie Pioneer ' — The 
Discouragements. — The Suspension. — Publishes " Views 
Afoot." — Introduction to Literary Men. — Contributes to the 
"Literary World." — Becomes an Editor of the New York 
" Tribune." — The Gold Excitement of 1849. — Resolves to visit 
the Eldorado. — Arrival in California, . , , , .115 



CONTENTS. 9 

CHAPTER XV. 

Entrance to California. — The Camp at San Francisco in 1849. — 
Description of the People. — Gold-Hunters. — Speculations. — 
Prices of Merchandise. — Visit to the Diggings. —Adventujes 
on the Route. — The First Election. — The Constitutional Con- 
vention. — San Francisco after Two Months' Absence. — Poetical 
Descriptions. — Departure for Mexico. — Arrival at Mazatlan. 

— Overland to the Capital. — Adventure with Robbers. — Re- 
turn to New York, 120 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Poet's First Love. — Playmates. — Miss Mary S. Agnew. — His 
Fidelity. — Poems Inspired by Affection. — Her Failing Health. 

— Consumption. — His Return to Her. — The Marriage at the 
Death-bed. — Her Death. — The Poet's Grief. — His Inner Life. 

— The Story in his own Rhyme, 1^-^ 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Grief and Despair. — Describes his Feelings. — Failing Health.— 
Severe Mental Labor. — Decides to go to Africa. — Visits Vien- 
na. — Arrival at Alexandria.— Sails up the Nile. — Scenes in 
Cairo. — The Pyramids. — The Lovely Nile. — An Important and 
Pleasant Acquaintance. —A Lasting Friendship. — Learning the 
Language.— Assuming the Costume.— Sights by the Way, lal 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Moslem Worship. — Scenery of the Nile. — Fellowship with the 
People. — The Temple of Dendera. — Mr. Taylor's Enthusi- 
asm. — Luxor. — Karnak. — The Extent of Ancient Thebes. — 
The Tombs and Statues. — The Natives. — Arrives at Assouan. 

— Th« Island of Philse. -^ Separation of the Friends. — 
Starts for the White Nile. — Trip through the Desert. - Again 
on the Nile. — Reception by the People and Officials. — Visits 
Ancient Meroe, " • • ■^"'* 

CHAPTER XIX. 
From Meroe to Khartoum. — Twenty-seventh Birth-day. — Desire 
to Explore Central Africa. — Ascent of the White Nile. — Ad- 
venture with the Savage Shillooks. — Visits the Natives. —Ke- 
turn to Khartoum. — Crossing the Desert. — Parting with 
Friends. — Descent of the Nile. — Arrival at Cairo, . . 174 

CHAPTER XX. 
Departure from Egypt. — A Poet in Palestine. - Difference in Trav- 
ellers.— Mr. Taylor's Appreciation. — First View of lyre.— 
Route to Jerusalem. — The Holy City. - Bath m the Dead Sea. 

— Appearance of Jerusalem. — Samaria. — Looking down upon 
Damascus. -^ Life in the eldest City. -The Bath. -Dose of 
Hashish. — Being a Turk among Tui-ks, . . • - l»4 



10 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Leaviug Damascus. — Arrival at Beyrout. — Trip to Aleppo. — En- 
ters Asia Miuor. — The Scenery and People. — The Hills of Leb- 
anon. — Beautiful Scenes about Brousa. — Enters Constantino- 
ple. — A Prophecy. — Return to Smyrna. — Again in Italy. — 
Visits his German Friend at Gotha. — The Home of his Second 
Love. — Goes to London. — Visits Gibraltar. — Cadiz. — 
Seville. — Spanish History, 194 

CHAPTER XXII. 
Leaves Gibraltar for Alexandria. — Egypt and Old Friends. — The 
Town of Suez. — Embarks for Bombay. — Mocha and its Cof- 
fee. — Aden. — Arrival in Bombay. — Reception by the People. — 
Trip to Elephanta. — Ride into the Interior. — Difficulties of 
the Journey. — Views of Agra. — Scenes about Delhi. — Starts 
for the Himalaya Mountains, 206 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
The Himalaya Mountains. — Returning Southward. — Lucknow and 
Calcutta. — Foretells the Great Rebellion. — Embarks for Chi- 
na. — Visit to the Mountains of Penang. — The Chinese at Sin- 
gapore. — Arrival at Hong-Kong. — Joins the Staff of the U. 
S. Commissionor. — Scenes about Shanghai. — The Nanking 
Rebellion. — Life in Shanghai. — Enlists in the Navy. — Com- 
modore Perry's Expedition, 221 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
His Reception on the Man-of-war. — Commodore Perry's Tribute. — 
Mr. Taylor's Journals. — Visit to the Loo-Choo Islands. — Explo- 
rations. — Mr. Taylor becomes a Favorite. — His Description of 
the Country. — Cruise to Japan. — The Purpose of the Expedi- 
tion. — Mr. Taylor's Assistance. — Return to Hong-Kong. — Re- 
signs his Commission. — Visits Canton. — Sails for America. — 
St. Helena. — Arrival in New York, 230 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Takes up the Editorial Pen. — Publication of His " Poems of the 
Orient." — His Books of Travel. — Lecturing before Lyceums. — 
Friendship of Richard H. Stoddard. — Private Correspondence 

— Love of Fun. — Resolves to Build a Home at Kennett. - 
Charges of Intemperance. — Preparations for a Third Trip to 
Europe. — Acquaintance with Thackeray, .... 242 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Visit to Europe. — Reception in England. — Company in Charge. — 
Starts for Sweden. — Stockholm. — The Dangerous Ride. — The 
Severe Cold. — Arrival in Lapland. — First Experience with 
Canoes and Reindeers. — Becomes a Lapp. — The Extreme 
North. — The Days without a Sun. — " Yankee Doodle." — The 
Return. — Study in Stockholm. — Return to Germany and Lon- 
don. — Embarks for Norway. — Meets his Friend at Christiania. 

— The Coast of Norway. — The Midnight Sun. — Trip across 
Norway and Sweden. — Return to Germany, , . . 252 



THK 



LIFE, TRAVELS. AND LITERARY CAREER 

OF 

BAYARD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER I. 

Mr. Taylor's Career. — Difficulty and Importance of the Work. — 
The Romance of his Life. — Variable Experience. — His Success 
as Novelist, Orator, Traveller, and Poet. 

The nearness find magnitude of Bayard Taylor's life 
make it one exceedingly difficult to comprehend and 
classify. His adventures were so many, his struggles 
so severe, his experience so varied, and his final suc- 
cess so remarkable, that the materials are too abun- 
dant, and often serve to clog and confuse the student 
of his career. An artist who views the mountain 
from its base, loses many of the finest eflfects and 
most charming outlines, because of his very close 
proximity to them. So, in looking upon the wonderful 
career of such a versatile and gifted man, at a time so 
near his death, we are less able to form a comprehen- 
sive idea of his life, as a symmetrical whole, than we 



l4 LIFE OF BA^^ARi) TAYLOR. 

shall be when the years have carried us farther away 
from him, and the outlines of his greatness are more 
distinct. Whether it were better to wait until a part 
of the life has been forgotten, and until the more harsh 
and angular features have been lost in the general out- 
line, or whether it were more desirable to describe the 
life in all its actual details, and in the natural rugged- 
ness which the close view reveals, is, however, a mere 
matter of taste. To those who love to read of a man 
in whose work there was no unevenness and in whose 
experience nothing unbroken is seen, the life of one 
so long dead that the writer is compelled to fill up 
the forgotten years with ideal events and motives may 
furnish the choicest theme. But to those students who 
love scientific scrutiny, who would estimate the life 
for what it is really worth as an example, the biog- 
raphy which is written amid all the facts, and by one 
who comes in actual contact with them, is perhaps 
esteemed the most valuable, although, as a whole, less 
symmetrical. 

Bayard Taylor's life was rugged and cragged with 
startling events, when viewed from the kindly poetical 
stand-point of his character. He felt all the extremes 
of joy and sorrow. He knew all the pains and honors 
of poverty and wealth. He was loved by many, he 
was betrayed by many. He lived in the most enlight- 
ened lands, he also sojourned among the most barbar- 
ous people. He saw man in peace and in war. He 
rode the orean in calm and in storm. H*^ was the 



LITERARY POSITION. 15 

welcomed guest in the lowliest huts, and in the most 
gorgeous palaces. He sweltered in the sands of trop- 
ical deserts, and he was benumbed by the fierce winds 
of the Northern ice-fields. He boldly entered the 
haunts of wild beasts, and loved the company of 
harmless and faithful domestics. He was a man of 
many virtues and some faults, each of which made his 
life more eventful and fascinating. 

The literary position which he held at the time of 
his death, and which was so romantically attained, was 
one of almost universal favor. He was respected by 
all and loved by many. As a writer of fiction he at- 
tained but little celebrity, an4 it appears that he had 
little expectation of achieving any high honors in that 
field. As a writer upon travels, and as a delineator of 
human character as found in strange places, and in but 
partially known countries, he was second to none. 
His books upon travel will be read for a century to 
come, whether thousands or few visit the localities and 
tribes he has described. As an orator, he never held 
a high rank. He was chaste, concise, and clear in his 
choice of words, and had an incisive, pungent way of 
stating his ideas. He could instruct the student and 
amuse the populace, but had not the power to agi- 
tate and carry away large bodies of men, and seems 
never to have been very ambitious to do so. As a 
translator of German literature, he was fast l^ecoming 
recognized in all English-speaking countries as an 
excellent authority, and it is deeply to be regretted 



16 LrrE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

that he was called away with so many uncompleted 
translations, and unfinished plans for translatioi\s, from 
the standards of German literature. But it is as a poet 
that he receives the greatest homage. Yet how little 
he printed ! Unless there shall be found laid away 
many poems unpublished, he may be classed as one of 
the least prolific poets of his generation. His lines 
are so simple, so true to life, such incarnate sentences, 
so exptessive, that, to one who has had a similar expe- 
rience with the poet, every stanza is a panorama, vivid 
and indelible. We shall see as we pursue the tale, how 
sensitive he was to everything poetical, and how deeply 
he was moved by all those finer and more subtle emo- 
tions, which only a poet can feel. His love was deep 
and abiding. His friendship, like the oaks of his 
Cedarcroft woodland. His old home was to him the 
sweetest place in all the beautiful lands he saw. His 
life was full of romantic incidents, and he recognized 
them and appreciated them, for the poetry they sug- 
gested. We venture to say that his poetry will live 
in every household, if all his other works should be 
forgotten. 



ANCESTRY. 17 



CHAPTER II. 



Serman Ancestry. — English Ancestry. — The Pennsylvania Ger- 
mans. — The Quakers. — How his Forefathers came to America. 
— The Effect of Intermixture of Races. — The Hereditary Traits 
seen in his Books. 



The ancestry of Bayard Taylor were connected 
with some of the best blood of England and Germany. 
His grandmothers were both German, and his grand- 
fathers both English. The German line comes from 
that body of emigrants, consisting of large numbers 
from Weimar, Jena, Cassel, Gottingen, Hanover, and 
perhaps Gotha, who sailed from Bremen and Ham- 
burg between 1730 and 1745. The continued quar- 
rels among the dukes and princes of Germany, — the 
wars in progress and impending, wherein the peace 
of the people was incessantly disturbed, — caused a 
universal uneasiness among the people of those small 
nations. They never were quite sure of a day's rest. 
If they sowed unmolested, there was a grave doubt 
whether some complication with France, England, or 
Poland might not bring foreign invaders or allies to 
destroy or devour the crops. The wars were so inces- 
sant, and the quarrels among the petty lords so fre- 
quent, that the people became disheartened. They 



18 LIFE OF BA^AIlb TAYLOR* 

were weary of building for others to destroy, and of 
rearing sons to be sacrificed to some individual's 
ambition. All those German provinces, or duchies, 
had to accommodate themselves to the religion of their 
princes, and, at times, the winds that played about the 
hills of the Black Forest were far less uncertain. To 
the fathers of these emigrants, who sought America as a 
haven of religious and political rest, George Fox and 
his Quaker disciples had taught the doctrines of " The 
Holy Spirit," and, under various guises, the tenets of 
that belief still survived in the German heart. 

Those Germans who settled in the counties of 
Pennsylvania, lying to the south and south-west of 
Philadelphia, came to this country during the disturb- 
ances in the Fatherland, caused by Augustus, Maria 
Theresa, Frederick, and the scores of other princes 
who were in power, or seeking to secure it, in the 
numerous states and free cities of Germany. It is 
no light excuse, no desire for mere wealth, no hasty 
search for the fountains of youth, that causes the 
solid, earnest, patriotic people of Saxony, Baden, or 
Bavaria to leave forever the home of their nativity. 
It is a little curious to see how these races, which so 
cordially and hospitably received the Quaker mission- 
aries from England, should at last unite with them in 
the settlement of the New World, and, by their inter- 
marriage, produce such offshoots of the united stock 
as Bayard Taylor and his cotemporaries. 

The Quaker ancestry of the poet, — the Taylors 



AKCESTRY. 19 

and the Ways, — run back through a long line of 
industrious men and women, more or less known in 
Central Pennsylvania, to the colony which William 
Penn sent over from England to cultivate the great 
land-grant, which King Charles II., of England, gave 
him, in consideration of his father's services as admiral 
in the British navy. They, too, were driven from 
their homes by the incessant turmoil either of wars or 
religious persecutions. Their preachers had again and 
again been imprisoned, while some had died the death 
of mai'tyrs. Even Penn himself was often in chains 
and in prison, for being a peaceable believer in the 
truth of the Quaker doctrines ; but so bhimeless were 
the lives of these people, and so forgiving their 
Christian behavior, that the term " Quakers," which 
was at first applied to them in derision, became at 
last a title of respect and honor. "The fear of the 
Lord did make us quake," was a common expression 
with George Fox, the founder of the sect, and the 
name "Quakers" originated in sneers at that devout 
sentence. 

It is easy to trace in the history of the State of 
Pennsylvania, the influence of the Quaker spirit, and 
its impiession upon the institutions of the American 
nation is also strikingly apparent. But when one 
takes up the life of one of their descendants, and 
studies his habits, his style of thought, and his ideas 
of social and political institutions, the hereditary 
Quaker element, in a modified form, is detected in 



20 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

every motion and expression. It would seem as if 
any reader, to whom the author is unknown, would 
detect at once, in any volume of Taylor's poetry or 
travels, the fact that he came from Quaker stock. As 
will be more clearly shown in a subsequent chapter, 
the teachings of the Quakers, and their manner of 
expression by gesture and phrase, have unconsciously 
and charmingly crept into the bosom of his best 
works. It is a great boon to be born of such a physi- 
cal and mental combination as that of the German 
soldiers, with all their coolness and bravery, and the 
even-tempered. God-fearing Quakers, with all their 
grace and wisdom. Such intermixture has given to 
our young nation much of its surprising enterprise 
and originality, and must, at last, when consolidated 
into a compact people, produce a nation and a race 
wholly unlike any other on the earth. 

It is not known that any of Bayard Taylor's ances- 
try were literary men, or that any of them were 
endowed with special genius, beyond that which was 
necessary to clear the forests, cultivate the soil, man- 
age manufacturing enterprises, and carry on small 
mercantile establishments. Solid people, with wide 
common-sense, industrious hands and generous hearts, 
they have modestly held their way, doing their simple 
duty, and, Quaker-like, making no display. 



BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 21 



CHAPTER III. 

Birth at Keuuett Square. — Old Homestead. —The Quaker Church. 
The Village. — His Father's Store. — Life on the Farm. — Mis- 
chievous School-boy. — Inclinatiou to write Poetry.- Practical 
Joker. — Studious Youth. — His Parents. — His Brothers and 
Sisters. 

Bayard Taylor was born at Kennett Square, 
Penn., Jan. 11, 1825. His mother, whose maiden 
name was Rebecca Way, was then twenty-nine years 
of age, and his father was thirty-one. The house 
then occupied was a two-story stone-and-mortar 
structure, such as are yet very common in the farm- 
ing regions of central Pennsylvania. The house was 
long and narrow, having a porch that extended along 
the whole front. The . rooms were small and low, 
but it was considered by the farmers of that time 
as a very comfortable and respectable home. It was 
located at the junction of two highways, and near the 
centre of the little hamlet called the " Square," and 
sometimes the "Village." But few families resided 
there in 1825, and the people were all more or less 
engaged in the cultivation of the soil. The little rude 
Quaker meeting-house, so box-like and cold in its 
aspect, was doubtless the centre of attraction, and the 
desire to be near the house of God, led those devoted 



22 LUTE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Quakers to build their dwellings on that portion of 
their lands which lay nearest the church. 

The village has increased in growth, and now has a 
population of six or seven hundred, with several 
churches belonging to other denominations, and ver^ 
flourishing schools. But the old homestead building, 
in which Bayard was born, was destroyed by fire in 
1876. 

At the time of his birth, his father kept a miscel- 
laneous stock of merchandise in one room of his 
house, and supplied the necessities of the farmers, so 
far as the small capital of a country store could antici- 
pate their wants. Situated thirty-five miles from Phil- 
adelphia, to which place he was compelled to send the 
produce he received, and in which place he purchased 
his simple stock of goods, the merchant had a 
task on his hands which cannot be appreciated or 
understood in these days of railways, telegraphs, and 
commercial travellers. One of his neighbors, living 
in 1872, used to relate how Mr. Taylor, having had a 
call for two hay-rakes, which he could not supply, 
drove all the way to West Chester, the distance of a 
dozen miles, to get those tools for his customer. 

At the time of Bayard's birth, his parents had been 
married seven years. Their life had already been 
subject to many trials, and was fated to meet many 
more. Of a family of ten children, only one-half the 
number survived to see mature years. The losses by 
mercantile ventures, by failing crops, by sickness 



1 



BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 23 

and accidents, often swept away the hard earnings of 
many a month. Yet they struggled on, industrious 
and cheerful, keeping themselves and their children 
ever busy. 

When Bayard was two or three years old, his father 
purchased a farm about a mile from the village, and 
giving up his mercantile avocations, turned his whole 
attention to farming. On that farm Bayard spent the 
opening years of his life, and on one section of it did 
he build his beautiful home of " Cedarcroft." 

" The beginning and the end is here — 
The days of youth ; the silvered years." 

How deeply he loved his home, how sincere his affec- 
tion for the rolling fields, the chestnut and the walnut 
woodland, the old stone farm-house, the clumsy barn, 
the old highway, the acres of corn and wheat, the dis- 
tant village and its quaint old church, can be seen in 
a thousand expressions finding place in his published 
works. His poetical nature opened to his view beau- 
tiful landscapes and charming associations which oth- 
ers would not detect. The birds sang in an intelligi- 
ble language; the leaves on the corn entered into 
conversation ; the lowing of the cows could be inter- 
preted ; and the rocks were romantic story-tellers. 
He loved them all. That farm was his Mecca in all 
his travels. When he left, he says he promised bird, 
beast, trees, and knolls, that he would return to 
them. To the writer, who went to Cedarcroft after 



24 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

the poet's death, and who has so long loved and 
admired his poetry, it seemed as if the trees patiently 
awaited his return. All things in nature must have 
loved and trusted him, or they would not have con- 
fided to him so many of their secrets. 

Of the pastoral life in Pennsylvania he speaks with 
pleasing directness in his volume entitled " Home 
Pastorals." In one place the aged farmer says : — 

" Well — well ! this is comfort uow — the air is mild as May, 
And yet 'tis March the twentieth, or twenty-first, to-day ; 
And Reuben ploughs the hill for corn : I thought it would be tough 
But now I see the furrows turned, I guess it's dry enough. 

I'm glad I built this southern porch ; my chair seems easier here : 

I haven't seen as fine a spring this five and twenty year. 

And how the time goes round so quick : a week I would have 

sworn. 
Since they were husking on the flat, and now they plough for corn 

Across the level Brown's new place begins to make a show • 
I thought he'd have to wait for trees, but, bless me, how they grow . 
They say it's fine — two acres filled with evergreens and things ; 
But so much land ! it worries me, for not a cent it brings. 

He has the right, I don't deny, to please himself that way. 
But 'tis a bad example set, and leads young folks astray : 
Book-learning gets the upper hand, and work is slow and slack. 
And they that come long after us will find things gone to wrack. 

Well — I suppose I'm old, and yet it is not long ago 
When Reuben spread the swath to dry, and Jesse learned to mow. 
And William raked, and Israel hoed, and Joseph pitched with me, 
But such a man as I was then my boys will never be 1 



BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 25 

I don't mind William's hankering for lectnres and for booKfl 
He never had a farming knack — you 'd see it in his looks ; 
But handsome is that handsome does, and he is well to do: 
'Twould ease my mind if I could say the same of Jesse, too. 

'Ti8 like my time is nearly out ; of that I 'm not afraid ; 

I never cheated any man, aud all my debts are paid. 

They call it rest that we shall have, but work would do no harm ; 

There can't be rivers there, and fields, without some sort o' farm." 

No description in prose can as well describe his 
occupation as a boy, as his own lines, in the poem of 
the "Holly Tree." 

" The corn was warm in the ground, the fences were mended and 
made, 

And the garden-beds, as smooth as a counterpane is laid, 

Were dotted and striped with green, where the peas and the rad- 
ishes grew. 

With elecampane at the foot, and comfrey, and sage, and rue. 

From the knoll where stood the house, the fair fields pleasantly 
rolled, 

To dells where the laurels hung, and meadows of buttercup gold." 

Such was the farm when he left it, in words of the 
poet's choosing, and what he found when, after a 
quarter of a century of wanderings, he can best de- 
scribe. 

"Here are the fields again, the soldierly maize in tassel 
Stands on review, and carries the scabbarded ears in its armpits. 
Rustling, I part the ranks, — the close, engulfing battalions 
Shaking their plumes overhead, — and, wholly bewildered a 

heated. 
Gain the top of the ridge, where stands, colossal, the pin-oak. 
Yonder, a mile away, I see the roofs of the village — 



26 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

See the crouching front of the meeting-house of the Quakers, 
Oddly conjoined with the whittled Presbyterian steeple. 
Right and left are the homes of the slow, conservative farmers, 
Loyal people and true ; but, now that the battles are over, 
Zealous for Temperance, Peace, and the Right of Suffrage foi 

Women. 
Orderly, moral are they, — at least, in the sense of suppression ; 
Given to preaching of rules, inflexible outlines of duty : 
Seeing the sternness of life; but, alas! overlooking its graces. 
Let me be juster : the scattered seeds of the graces are planted 
Widely apart ; but the trumpet-vine on the porch is a token : 
Yea, and awake and alive are the forces of love and affection, 
Plastic forces that work from the tenderer models of beauty." 

There must be many things in the events of com- 
mon life which find no voice in poetry, as every life 
has its prose side. At all events, there were some 
duties connected with agricultural work which young 
Bayard never enjoyed. He never was ambitious to 
follow the plough, or do the miscellaneous odd jobs 
which perplex and weary a farmer's boy. Yet, like 
Burns, he worked cheerfully, and wrung more or less 
poetry out of every occupation. He was a spare, 
wiry, nervous boy, quick at work, study, or play, 
and consequently had many leisure moments, when 
other boys were drudging along with ceaseless toil. 
His schoolmates, and the only school-teacher now 
living (1879), who taught him in his boyhood, all 
agree that he was a mischievous boy. He loved prac- 
tical jokes, and, in fact, jokes of every kind. But 
he was ceaselessly framing verses. When his lesson 
was mastered, which was always in an Incredibly 



BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 27 

short space of time after he took up his book, he 
plunged recklessly into poetry. Verses about the 
teacher, about snowbanks, about buttercups, about 
pigs, about courting, funerals, church services, school 
mates, and countless other themes filled his desk, 
pockets, and hat. 

Often he wrote love letters, couched in the most 
delicate phraseology, and signing the name of some 
classmate to them, would send them to astonished 
ploughboys and blushing maidens. One old gentle- 
man in West Chester, Penn., always claimed that a set 
of Bayard's burlesque verses, sent out in that way, 
induced him to court and marry a girl with whom 
he had no acquaintance, until the explanation of his 
tender epistle was demanded by her father. What 
volumes of poetry he must have written, which never 
saw the type, and how much more of that which he 
was in the habit of repeating to himself was left un- 
written ! The life he led, from his earliest school 
days, until he was fifteen years of age, was that 
of every farmer's boy in America, who is compelled 
to work hard through the spring, summer, and au- 
tumn, and attend the district school in the winter. 
The only remarkable difference between Bayard and 
many other boys, was found in his strong desire to 
read, and his genius f-^r poetry. He gathered the 
greater part of his youthful education from books, 
which he read at home, and by himself. 

He had a noble father, and a lovely mother, God 



28 LIFU OF BAYAKD TAYLOR. 

bless them ! and they made it as easy for Bayard as 
they could in justice to the other children. They 
might not have fully understood the signs of genius 
which he displayed ; but they put no needless stum- 
bling-blocks in his way. No better proof of this 
is needed, than the excellent record of the other 
children, all of whom hold enviable positions in so 
ciety. One brother, Dr. J. Howard Taylor, is a 
physican, and connected Avith the health department 
of the city of Philadelphia ; another, William W. Tay- 
lor, is a most skilful civil engineer ; while a third, 
Col. Frederick Taylor, was killed at the battle of 
Gettysburg, when leading the celebrated Bucktail 
Regiment of Pennsylvania. Two sisters are living, 
— Mrs. Annie Carey, wife of a Swiss gentleman ; 
and Mrs. Lamborn, wife of Col. Charles B. Lam- 
born, of Colorado. Growing up in such a family, 
as an elder brother, involved much patient toil, and 
great responsibility. The best tribute to him, in 
those days, was paid by an old lady, of Reading, 
Penn., who knew him in his youth, and who summed 
up her evidence to the writer in the words, "He did 
all he could." 



INTELLECTUAL INCLINATION. 29 



CHAPTER IV. 

Uiifitness for Farmiug. — Love for Books. — Goes to tLe Academy. 

— Appearance as a Student. — Love for Geography and History. 

— Enters a Printing-office. — Genius for Sketching. — Corre- 
spondence with Literary Men. — Their Advice. — Hon. Charles 
Miner. — Putnam's Tourist Guide. — Determination to go to 
Europe. — Dismal Prospects. 

Joseph Taylor was too intelligent and observing 
not to notice bow unfit was bis son Bayard for tend- 
ing sbecp, boeing corn, and weeding beds of vege- 
tables. Tbe intellectual inclination exbibited by tbe 
boy in every undertaking, and bis frail form, led 
Mr. and Mrs. Taylor to look about for some 
occupation for tbeir son more fitting than tbe bard 
drudgery of a farm. Tbe eagerness witb wbich be 
devoted bimself to tbe study of sucb books as 
could tben be secured ; bis scbemes for obtaining 
volumes considered by bis parents, until tben, wholly 
beyond tbeir reach ; his poems and essays, learned in 
the bay field, and written out after the day's work was 
done, all confirmed them in the feeling that it was 
their duty to give up his assistance on the homestead, 
and permit him to follow the leading of bis genius. 
It was witb no little anxiety that they sent him " away 
to school " ; for they felt tben that they might not 



30 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

have theii son, as a companion, at home again Mr. 
Gause then taught an excellent high school at West 
Chester, the county seat, and to that they sent him 
for a short time. One of his classmates at that school, 
now residing in Baltimore, says he remembers dis- 
tinctly how awkward and rustic Bayard appeared 
when he first entered the school, and how radical and 
rapid was the change from the ploughboy to the stu- 
dent. He became a universal favorite, and was so able 
to teach, and so ready to help, that he had a large 
number of scholars following him about half the time, 
for the purpose of getting assistance at their lessons. 
Yet he found much time to read other books than 
those containing his studies, and as in a village of the 
size of West Chester, there were some small libraries, 
his desire for reading could be gratified. Geography 
was his favorite study, and, in the pursuit of informa- 
tion, he sought out and read so many books relating 
to the places mentioned in the text-book, that his 
classmates used to say that " Bayard knows all about 
his geography without even reading his lessons over." 
He was soon well acquainted with the history of 
the world, and had the most interesting events con- 
nected with the wars of Europe fresh in his mind. 
He read about Edinburgh, London, Paris, Berlin, 
and Dresden ; of William the Conqueror, Peter the 
Great, Charlemagne, and Mahomet; of the adventures 
of the Crusaders, of the wars of the Roses, the Thirty 
Years' War, and Napoleon's campaigns ; and, with 



YOUTHFUL ENTERPRISES. 31 

each volume, built higher those castles in the air, 
which many youths construct on the excitement of 
such themes. It seems astonishing how a boy of 
fourteen years could appreciate so much of the books 
he read, when we recall the dulness and dryness which 
characterized almost every history then extant, and 
the exceedingly difficult subjects of which they treated. 
He read, one day, for a few minutes, in Union ville, in 
1839, from a book that lay on the mantel-shelf, and 
although the subject was that of art and the beauty of 
Raphael's Madonna and child, he understood it so 
well, and remembered it so clearly, that, in 1845, 
when at Dresden, where the picture was exhibited, he 
was able to recall the words of that description, and 
the name of the writer. 

The circumstances in which his parents were placed, 
made it impossible for them to support him long at 
school, neither was he inclined to be a charge upon 
them. He desired to be able to earn money for him- 
self, both to relieve his parents of the expense, and to 
furnish means for purchasing books. He was a bold 
youth. He seemed to fear nothing. He had a 
sublime faith in his own success, w^iich was not ego- 
tism nor pride, but an inspiration. Very often, when 
he had read a book, he would sit down and write to 
the author ; which fact was not, in itself, so astonishing 
as the fact that he wrote letters so bright and sensible, 
that in nearly every case he obtained a courteous, 
and often a lengthy reply. In this way, he made the 



LIFE OF BATARD TAYLOR. 



^ 



ac(|uaintance of many men well known in the literary 
circles of America, several of whom were of great 
assistance to him a few years after. When he was 
but ten years old, and still on the old farm, he read 
" Pencillings by the Way," which was a narrative of 
foreign travel, written by Nathaniel P. Willis, and 
published in the New York "Mirror," of which Mr. 
Willis was then an associate editor. 

Young Bayard soon after entered into a correspond- 
ence with Mr. Willis on literary matters, and contin- 
ued the interchange of letters until the death of Mr. 
Willis, in 1867. In the same manner young Bayard 
secured the attention, advice, and assistance of Rufus 
W. Griswold, who edited the "New World" and the 
"New Yorker," and who, in 1842 and 1843, edited 
"Graham's Magazine," in Philadeli)hia. Dr. Gris- 
wold was also a poet, and in fact had been in every 
branch of literary work, from writing items in Boston 
for a weekly paper, through type-setting, reporting, 
and compiling, to writing sermons as a Baptist minis- 
ter. He had led a wandering life, had seen much of 
the world, and was well acquainted, as an editor and 
reviewer, with all the best works of history, travel, and 
poetry. From him Bayard received much sensible 
advice and much encouragement. To him Bayard 
sent some of his earliest poems, and thus secured 
their publication. 

It is probable that Bayard became acquainted with 
Henry S. Evans, editor of the West Chester " Village 



PRINTING AND SKETCHING. 33 

Record," through some of his poetical contributions 
to that paper. However that may be, he sought the 
office of that paper for an opportunity to learn the 
printer's trade, when it had been decided by his pa- 
rents to let him ffo. The " Villao^e Record " had lonij 
been a respected and favorite journal for that county, 
and had, under the editorial management of Hon. 
Charles Miner, been the intellectual training-school 
of many influential and noted men. Mr. Evans was 
conducting the paper with much ability, and it was 
then usually considered a great opportunity for any 
young man if an opening was found for him in the 
office of that periodical. 

Yet Bayard did not like the work of a printer, 
and especially despised the work which naturally fell 
to his lot as a new apprentice. He took to sketching ; 
and having added the instruction of a teacher, for a 
few weeks, to a natural tact t\)r drawing, he "illus- 
trated " almost everything within reach which had a 
smooth surface. He caricatured the printers and edi- 
tors, and brought out the worst features of his asso- 
ciates in horrible cartoons. He sent to delinquent 
correspondents pictures of ink-bottles and long quills. 
He sketched hi nself in the mirror, and sent the copy 
to inquiring friends. Far too intent upon drawings, 
poetry, and travels to make much progress as a print- 
er, he became tired of the occupation and longed to 
be free. There came to his hands some time before 



34 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

he entered the printing-office, a small book, intended 
partly for home reading and partly as a guide-book 
for European travellers, entitled " The Tourist in 
Europe." It was written by George P. Putnam, of 
New York, and told the routes, and described the 
wonders to be seen, in a very fascinating way to one 
like Bayard, whose imagination was already excited to 
the most enthusiastic pitch. The boy appears to have 
studied that book with the greatest and most perse- 
vering zeal. He used it for a plan of reading, and 
taking it by course, borrowed books relating to the 
places mentioned by Mr. Putnam, until one by one 
he had learned the history, occupation, literary 
achievements, and habits of every city or town of 
note in the whole of Europe. He made up his mind 
that he was going to Europe. Just how or when was 
a mystery. But that he was going soon he had no 
doubt. He spoke of his trip to England and Ger- 
many with the confidence of one who has his ticket 
and letter of credit already in his pocket. Yet he was 
a penniless boy, who had scarcely seen a ship, and 
who knew but a few phrases outside of his nativ^e 
tongue. His friends laughed at him, and gravely told 
his relatives that if Bayard did not curb his rambling 
disposition he would become a beggar and a disgrace. 
Even that chosen schoolmate, whose dark eyes and 
tresses held more influence over his thoughts and 
movements than the world knew, or he himself would 
publicly acknowledge, laughed incredulously as he 



PREPARATIONS FOR TRAVEL. 35 

told her of his projected visits to the castles, towers, 
shrines, and battle-fields of Europe and Asia. 

The months rolled heavily away, and his fingers 
wearied with the type, and his heart became sad be- 
cause of the long delay. He began to be ashamed of 
his boasts, but patiently waited. For two years he 
studied, planned, prophesied, yearned for a trip to 
Europe ; having in the meantime made a short and 
hazardous tram'p to the Catskills, with money saved 
from his clothing allowance as an apprentice. He 
ventured to write to some ship-owners in Phila- 
delphia, to ascertain if he could work his pas- 
sage. He often mentioned his proposed trip to his 
employer, and asked to be released from his engage- 
ment and agreement as an apprentice. Mr. Evans 
only smiled and said that Bayard need not trouble 
himself about that at present ; it would be all right 
when the time came for him to go. Thus, with a 
conviction that he should certainly go, and yet heart- 
sick at the delay, Bayard reached his nineteenth 
birthday. 



36 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYXOB. 



CHAPTER V. 



Visited by his Cousiu. — Decides to go to Europe with his Cousin. — 
Correspondence with Travellers. — Lack of Money. — Unshaken 
Confidence. — Publication of Ximeua. 



Bayard had a cousin Frank, or Franklin, whom he 
held in great respect, and whose subsequent life, as 
will be seen hereafter, justified the high esteem in 
which Bayard held him. This young man, a few 
years older than Bayard, had, by much patience and 
perseverance, succeeded in obtaining sufficient money 
to support himself in an economical manner in Ger- 
many, and had made up his mind to attend the lectures 
at the university in Heidelberg. 

"Are you really going, Frank? " 

"Yes, Bayard, I am going sine." 

"Then I am going with you." 

''But, Bayard, how are you going to get the money 
to pay your expenses ? " 

" I do not know where it is coming from, not even 
for my outfit, but I am going with you." 

Bayard had written to a great many people, of 
whom he had heard, asking them about the expense 
and outfit for a tour in Europe. Some of them had 
made the journey, and some had completed their prep- 



FIRST POEMS. 37 

arations ; but they all placed the amount so high as 
to appear like a fabulous sum to the poor apprentice. 
None placed the fare at less than five hundred dollars, 
while some of the estimates were as hio^h as eiofhteen 
hundred dollars. Of course this poor boy could 
not earn nor borrow either of these amounts. Yet 
he was confident that in some way he would be able 
to overcome the diflSculty. 

Dr. Griswold, of whom mention was made in the 
last chapter, had suggested that it might be wise for 
Bayard to publish, in small book-form, his sonnets and 
other poems, and sell them to friends and admirers ; 
and when he found that Frank was going, he deter- 
mined to try that method of raising a little money. 
He went to some of his old fi'iends and neighbors for 
assistance to print his little volume ; ))ut so little was 
their faith in the boy they had known from his birth, 
that they told him they would not encourage him in 
a scheme so absurd and impracticable. But Bayard 
only became the more determined with each defeat. 
He renewed his application to friends more distant, 
and, as is usually the case, he found they had more 
confidence than those who looked upon him as the 
boy they knew on the farm. From those distant 
friends, living in Philadelphia and West Chester, he 
at last obtained such assistance as to be able to print 
a few copies of his poems. He christened his first 
volume "Ximena, and other Poems," and finding 
many kindly disposed persons who would like to help 



38 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

him to the small sum asked for the book, but who 
would have been ashamed to present him with so 
diminutive an amount, he was enabled to dispose of 
enough in a few days to pay his expenses and a 
profit of twenty dollars. Acting upon the advice of 
Nathaniel P. Willis, he applied to the editors of tho 
various newspapers in Philadelphia for employment as 
a travelling correspondent; but letters from Europe 
were liecoming stale, and correspondence was over- 
done, so that he was met with discouraging refusals 
on every hand. Fortunately, some one suggested to 
him the names of the "Saturday Evening Post," and 
the " United States Gazette." He was, however, 
without hope of anything from them. He has since 
said to his friends, that he then thought as he could 
not fare any worse than he had done, it would do no 
liarm to try again. His confidence in his final success 
was so great, that he had made a settlement with Mr. 
Evans, of the " Village Record," and had left the em- 
ployment of a printer before he had found or thought 
of a way to secure funds for his intended trip. He had 
no money, no outfit, no employment; and yet he was 
sure he should go. In that condition, and in a state 
of mind bordering on wonder, because the way which 
was to open had so long remained shut, this thin, 
awkward youth walked confidently into the office of 
the "Saturday Evening Post."' Mr. S. D. Patterson 
was then its editor, and, while he was disposed to 
assist the young man, he did not have mu(;h faith iu 



EAISING FUNDS. 39 

ii»s success as a corfespondent. Mr. Patterson, how- 
ever, gave Bayard some encouragement, and the 
youth, with lighter step, went to the office of the 
"United States Gazette." Not finding Mr. J. R. 
Chandler at his editorial room, Bayard went to the 
editor's residence. Mr. Chandler was sick in bed ; 
but he was able to converse with Bayard, and received 
him very pleasantly. The young man had never met 
Mr. Chandler before ; but he stated his cause with such 
frankness and clearness, and showed such confidence 
in his final triumph, that Mr. Chandler took out his 
pocket-book and gave Bayard fifty dollars, saying that 
if he sent any letters of sufficient interest they would 
be inserted in the columns of the "Gazette." Mr. 
Chandler did not, at the time, care for letters from 
Europe, and did not expect to publish any ; but, act- 
ing from the promptings of a generous heart, he 
freely gave the assistance desired, '^i Mr. Chandler's 
honorable career, more will '•». said in another chap- 
ter. 

On returning to Mr. Patterson, Bayard found him 
willing to do as he had proposed, and the sum of fifty 
dollars was added to the gift of Mr. Chandler. Then, 
as if fortunes, like misfortunes, come not singly, he 
found a customer for some manuscript poems in a 
friend of Dr. Griswold, — George R. Graham. From 
him Bayard received twenty dollars, making the 
round sum of one hundred and forty dollars with 
which to begin his journey to the Old World. Bay- 



40 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOK. 

arcl now felt independent and happy. At least he 
could fj'et across the Atlantic Ocean. He mio^ht have 
to work as a compositor, or as a common laborer, or 
even beg for his bread after he arrived on the other 
side ; he did not know, and seemed to care but little. 
He had encountered a hard fortune here, and con- 
quered, and he felt sure that he could do as well 
there. Happy, proud day was it for him when he 
returned with the money to his home at Kennett 
Square. Sad day for Mary Agnew. But as she and 
Bayard were only playmates and schoolmates, she 
must not appear to be especially grieved. 

The next thing to ])e done Avas to obtain a passport 
from the United States Government. It could only 
be obtained in Washington, and as they could not 
afibrd the expense of the stages, Frank and Bayard 
started for Washington on foot. It would seem as 
if such a journey of one hundred and twenty miles, 
— in which they walked thirty miles to Port Deposit, 
thence in a rickety tow-boat to Baltimore, and from 
that city to Washington, they tramped all night with- 
out food or drink, — would have discouraged any one 
from attempting to walk through the countries of 
Europe. For they must have returned from this first 
walk footsore and lame in every joint. Yet they 
came back as full of hope as when they started out, 
having seen Mr. Calhoun, then Secretary of State, 
and many other celebrities then inhabiting the capita] 
city, — June, 1844. 



PARTING WITH FRIENDS. 41 

Oh ! those farewells ! To the parents who had 
watched over him so long, it seemed like losing him 
forever, so far away and mythical did Europe seem to 
be. Their lips consented, but their hearts kept rap- 
ping no, no, no, in rebellious throbs. The brothers 
and sisters wept with a grief never before so keen, 
and a dread never before so deep. But to the youtlj, 
before whom the great unexplored world lay in its 
beauty, and who could not then realize, as he did so 
keenly afterwards, that in all the world he would find 
no spot so sweet and interesting to him as would be 
the one he was leaving, it was a joy over which the 
sadness of parting for a time was but as the shadow 
of a cloud on the summer sea. High hopes, great 
aspirations, drove him along, while romantic castles 
and fortresses, brilliant rivers, heavenly gardens, 
majestic mountams, wise people, delightful nmsic, 
gorgeous galleries of art, and indescribable lands- 
capes, beckoned him to come. Giddy with anticipa- 
tion, trembling with conflicting emotions, he stood in 
the shade of the oak and the hickory of the old home 
that morning, bidding his loved ones good-by. He 
was a hero. There was the sense of present loss, and 
of danger to come ; but it weighed not with him as 
against the great ambition of his life. 

Did he bid Mary Agnew farewell ? Perhaps ! The 
mature poet will tell us, in his own sweet way, by and 

by. 



42 LIFE OF BAYAiJD TAYtOft. 



CHAPTER VI. 

riie Contest with Enemies. — Departure from Philadelphia. — 
Friendship of N. P. Willis. — Discouraging Reception. — Inter- 
view with Horace Greeley. — Searching for a Vessel. — Steerage 
Passage for Liverpool. — Fellow Passengers. — The Voyage. - 
Ther Beauty of the Sea. — Landing at Liverpool. 

'* How rosed with morn, how angel innocent, 
Thus looking hack, I see my lightsome youth! 
Each thought a wondrous hounty Heaven had lent, 

And each illusion was a radiant truth ! 
Each sorrow dead bequeathed a young desire, 

Each hovering doubt, or cloud of discontent, 
So interfused with Faith's pervading fire. 
That to achieve seemed light as to aspire ! " 

— Taylor. 

Bayard was not an exception to the universal rule, 
found true by nearly every scholar, and every success- 
ful statesman. He was ridiculed by a thoughtless 
throng. His success in the matters he undertook sub- 
jected him to the slights and backbiting of envious 
simpletons, and everywhere the looks and shrugs of 
his acquaintances told with what contempt they 
looked upon his endeavors to be a poet, and to see 
the world. It was the same old trial, and only those 
young men who, like Bayard, are able to stand firm 
against ridicule and envy, ever reach the acropolis of 



STARTING FOR EUROPE. 43 

their ambition. No record has been found of the 
effect these things had upon Bayard, or upon the two 
noble young men who w^ere his companions ; but we 
do know that they turned not from their purpose. 
Bayard's sensitive nature, his warm heart, his innocent 
ambition must have felt the stings, and, at times in 
after life, he spoke as one who had not forgotten. 
How grand and honorable the exceptional a,ppearance 
of the few who were generous and faithful to the poor 
boy on the threshold of his life ! 

Taking with them only such baggage as they could 
carry in their hands, these three young men, — Bay- 
ard Taylor, Franklin Taylor, and Barclay Pennock. — 
started for New York the last week in June, 1844. 
There had been but little delay, notwithstanding the 
day for departure had been set before Bayard knew 
where the funds were to come from to defray his 
expenses. 

There was a strong hope in Bayard's mind that Mr. 
N. P. Willis, who had written him such encouraofin<; 
letters, would be able to assist him in securing 
employment as a travelling correspondent of some 
of the New York daily papers. Mr. Willis was 
widely known, and greatly respected in New York, 
and, on the arrival of Bayard at his office, he entered 
heartily into the work of procuring such a situation 
for his young friend. But foreign correspondence 
had been as much overdone in New York as in Phil- 
adelphia. So many writers had tried to make a nam? 



44 LIFE OF BAYARD TArLOR. 

by imitating the first successful correspondents, that 
the people were weary with the monotonous story. 
It was as well known then as it is now% that copyists 
and imitators are not what a live, active, original news- 
paper requires. Correspondence from almost any- 
where could be made interesting and amusing, if the 
writer would only write naturally, and describe the 
things he saw in just the light they appeared to him. 
No one thought that this boy w^ould do anything else 
but follow in the old track. Hence they wished for 
none of his writings. One gentleman told him that 
it was useless to make engagements, for a youth, 
going into a strange country in that hap-hazard w^ay, 
would not live to write any letters. Mr. Willis' 
generous assistance availed Bayard nothing w^ith a 
people who had so often been compelled to form their 
own opinion of the people they wished to employ, and 
who considered themselves the best judges. 

In the editorial room of the New York " Tribune " 
sat the editor, whose name is being written higher, on 
the list of America's great men, by every succeeding 
year. To his quick eye, there w^as promise of noble 
things in the countenance of the boy. He had himself 
been a venturesome, ambitious, penniless boy, and, 
like Bayard, he had boldly pushed his boat into the 
dangerous billows. He may have remembered Ben- 
jamin Frankhn's hazardous trip, as a boy, to Phil- 
adelphia, for Bayard was mentioned by Mr. Willis as 
a young man from the Quaker city. Whatever may 



HORACE GREELEY. 45 

have been his thoughts, he treated Bayard with his 
usual consideration, and informed the youth that he 
was ready to publish and pay for all letters that were 
worth inserting in the "Tribune." But he solemnly 
warned Bayard against attempting to write anything 
until he knew enough about the country to write 
intelligently. Bayard told Mr. Greeley that he would 
try to get acquainted with the people of Germany and 
their institutions, and, as soon as he felt competent, 
would send a few letters for Mr. Greeley's criticism. 
The busy editor nodded as the boy thanked him, 
bade him good-day, and, doubtless, instantly forgot 
there had ever bo^n such a visitor ; and left the fact 
in oblivion, until it was brought to mind some months 
afterwards by the arrival of a letter from Germany. 

Mr. Willis told Bayard, as he said afterwards, to 
keep up his courage, and go forward: "The way to 
Valhalla is broad and smooth to the hero, but narrow 
and dangerous to the coward." It appears by the 
brief account which is given in the introduction to 
his "Views Afoot," published by Putnam & Sons, 
New York, that the party had a difficult task to find 
a vessel in which the accommodations, rates of pas- 
sage, and port of destination were within their plan. 
They intended at first to take a vessel direct for the 
C/ontinent ; but in such of them as were bound for 
continental ports, the fare was too high. They 
wiire, however, on the point of taking passage in a 
Dutch sailing vessel, the consignees of which were 



46 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR . 

acquaintances of Mr. Willis, and consequently made 
some reduction in the fares, when an opportunity 
offered itself for a steerage passage in a vessel bound 
for Liverpool. In that way, they would be conveyed 
to England for the sum of twenty-four dollars. But 
such a passage ! Think of it, ye disconsolate, fault- 
finding tourists, who lie in the soft beds of a steamer, 
with fresh air and plenty of light ! Think of it, ye 
sufferers that occupy the great forward hall of a 
steamship, and who curse your fate that you are 
compelled to take a steerage passage ! What would 
you do or say should you be crowded into a cabin of 
rough planks, eight feet long, and seven feet wide, 
with nine passengers and eight narrow berths, in a 
clumsy, dirty little sailing vessel ? Yet this was the 
young adventurer's choice, rather than expend the 
small sum of twenty-five dollars from his small store. 
These three boys were compelled, by the terms of 
passage, to furnish their own provisions and bedding, 
and the fact that the unexpected honesty and kindness 
of a warehouse clerk prevented their starting off with- 
out enough food to last through the voyage, is anothei 
proof that "fortune favors the brave." 

As there was one more adult passenger in i iG 
steerage than there were berths. Bayard and his coi sin 
Frank good-naturedly agreed to occupy one together. 
To the writer, who has frequently crossed the treacher- 
ous Atlantic, there seems to be no experience so m- 
conceivably miserable and sickening as a steerage 



AT SEA. 47 

passage in a sailing vessel must be to the landsman. 
But when to the usual discomforts of dampness dark- 
ness, sea-sickness, and strange company, are added 
the cramps caused by being packed with another 
passenger like a sandwich into a narrow box, and the 
absence of fresh air, no tortures of the Inquisition 
would seem to equal it. Bayard often referred to hi 3 
first discouraging sensation of sea-sickness. Coming, as 
it always does to the passenger, just as he is taking his 
last sad look at the facjing shores of his native country 
it is always a disheartening experience. Bayard shed 
tears as he began to realize that he was actually afloat 
upon the wide ocean, and could not if he would 
return to the land. He has since well said, that had 
he known more of life, and the dangers of travel, 
his alarm and discouragement would have been much 
greater than they were, and of longer duration. 
Youth borrows no trouble ; hence it is happy and 
victorious. 

Of that voyage, and its sufferings, in the ship 
"Oxford," beginning on the first day of July, and 
ending at Liverpool on the twenty-ninth of the same 
month, he made but brief mention ; yet his experience? 
in getting the ship's cook to boil their potatoes, iu 
eating their meals of pilot-bread, and in the company of 
their English, Scotch, Irish, and German cabin-mates, 
was most charmingly told in his letters to the " Gazette " 
and to the "Post," as well as in "Views Afoot," to 
which reference has already been made. His Germ in 



48 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

companion was not only a social advantage, but fur- 
nished the adventurous youths with a pleasant oppor- 
tunity to get some of the German phrases, and to hear 
descriptions of the country they were to visit. They 
were also favored by the captain's permission to use 
books from the cabin library, which contained several 
entertainin«: books of travel and of fiction. The closins: 
days of the voyage appear to have been pleasant in 
some respects, for the beauty of the sea made a lasting 
impression upon his mind, and might possibly have 
been still in his memory when he wrote the lines in his 
"poems of Home and Travel," running thus : — 

" The sea is a jovial comrade, 

He laughs wherever he goes ; 
His merriment shines in the dimpling lines 

That wrinkle his hale repose ; 
He lays himself down at the feet of the Sun, 

And shakes all over with glee, 
And the broad-backed billows fall faint on the shore 

In the mirth of the mighty Sea." 

It may be that the beauty and joy of the sea ap- 
peared more remarkable because of the great contrast 
between its free and wild life, and the crowded and 
stifled existence of the mortals who witnessed its gam- 
bols. At all events he was not so delighted with the 
sea thit he could not shout with the others, when the 
dark outlines of Ireland's mountains appeared through 
the mist. The sleepless nights, the company of howl- 
ing Iowa Indians, the musty cabin, the terrible nausea - 



ARllIVAL AT LIVERPOOL. 49 

all were forgotten in the sight of land, and as the goal 
grew nearer, the more like a dream became all the 
disagreeable experiences of the voyage, until when, 
after tacking from northern Ireland to Scotland, from 
Scotland to Ireland, and from Ireland to the Isle of 
Man, they sailed up the Mersey to Liverpool, the in- 
conveniences of the voyage had wholly faded out, and 
only the few agreeable incidents remained a reality. 
They passed the dreaded officials of the custom-house 
without difficulty, and by the advice of a " wild Eng- 
lishman," who was one of their travelling companions, 
they Avent to the Chorley Tavern, and there enjoyed a 
bountiful dinner, as only passengers by sea can enjoy 
them when first they step on shore. Bayard was im- 
pressed by the sombre appearance of the city, and 
amused by the use of the middle of the streets for side- 
walks, and by the pink each man carried in his button 
hole. 



50 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER Vn. 

Departure from Liverpool. — Travels Second-Class. — Arrival at Port 
Rush. — The Giant's Causeway. — Lost and in Danger. — Dun- 
luce Castle. — Effect upon the Travellers. — Condition of the 
Irish. — Arrival at Dumbarton. — Scaling the Castle Walls. — 
Walk to Loch Lomond. — Ascent of Ben Lomond. — Loch 
Katrine. — Visit to Stirling. 

Bayard and his companions, including the German 
student, with whom there had sprung up an intimate 
friendship, left Liverpool on the same day on which 
they arrived there, having found that they would reach 
Scotland via the Giant's Causeway, as soon as they 
could by waiting for the more direct line. With an 
exercise of common-sense, such as characterizes too 
few Americans in this day of fashionable travel, they 
took passage second-class, finding themselves in no 
way the worse for the temporary inconvenience, while 
their fare was but one-sixth the amount of a first-class 
passage. It was not a comfortable night's voyage on 
the way from Liverpool to Port Rush, in the north of 
Ireland, starting at ten o'clock in the evening, and 
arriving at eleven o'clock the next night. It may 
be that the cold and wet, the crowd of Irish passen- 
gers, the unvaried diet of bread and cheese, served the 
purpose of making the shores and bluffs more attractive, 



giant's causeway. 51 

as the mind naturally seeks and usually obtains some 
comfort and recreation in the most doleful surround- 
ings. It is a glorious thing to look upon those basaltic 
hexagons of the Giant's Causeway, under any circum- 
stances. Those enormous natural columns, set side by 
side, so close as to make a floor along their tops, so 
strange, so unaccountaljly symmetrical, fill the soul with 
awe, and half persuade the least credulous beholder 
that there were giants in the days of yore, and that 
they really did build a thoroughfare of these huge 
prisms across to Scotland. Any traveller contem- 
plates those matchless piles with surprise, and every 
sojourner is delighted beyond estimation by the con- 
tour and echoes of the vast caverns, into which the 
ocean rolls with such enchanting combinations of sound 
and motion. But to young men who had seen but 
little of the world and its natural wonders, and who 
had suffered a kind of martyrdom for the sake of visit- 
mg them, those resounding caverns, and those mighty 
ruins of gigantic natural temples, must have been 
inspiring beyond measure. Every traveller recalls 
with the most clear and grateful remembrance, the first 
landscapes of Europe, on which rest his ocean- weary 
eyes. To these young men the landscapes were about 
their only joy, and they appreciated them accordingly. 
Bayard seems to have been very enthusiastic. lie 
scrutinized everything and questioned everybody. He 
let nothing pass him unnoticed, although in his books 
l^e left much uamentioned. He clambered into the 



52 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

lofty recesses of the Causeway, and let himself down 
into the strange niches. He halloed in the caves for 
the thundering echoes ; he drank three times at the 
magical Giant's Well. He strayed from the highway 
that led from Port Rush to the Causeway, to look into 
the weird nooks which the sea has carved in the 
mutable shore. Diinluce Castle, with its broken walls 
and ghastly towers — home of proud Lord Antrim — 
and home as well of that family's terrible banshee, was 
the first old ruin which Bayard visited. It stands on 
the verge of the cragged cliffs, with the sea beating 
about its base, and bellowing in the cavern under it. 
It is located near the highway which leads from Port 
Rush to the Causeway. Across the narrow footway, 
and into these ruins. Bayard rushed most eagerly. 
The same old man who now shows travellers the battle- 
ments, and tells to wondering hundreds the tales of 
tournament and banqueting-hall, was there then, and 
rehearsed the tale to him. The boy is gone. But 
the old man, whom Bayard mentions as an old man 
then, lives on in his dull routine, yet living less in a 
half century than Bayard lived in a single year. 

All this was fresh and glorious to the youth, and 
gave him a very pleasant foretaste of the rich experi- 
ences in store for him. But, as if the fates conspired 
to chill his intellectual joys with physical discomforts, 
a rain came pouring upon them as they returned, the 
wind blew in fierce gusts, darkness, deep and black, 
eottled upon the land ; thej^ lost their waj^, and floun- 



IRISH PEASANTRY. 53 

dered about in muddy ravines, and barely escaped 
destruction as they trod the edges of tlie precipices 
above the wildest of seas. They became separated 
from each other, and the howling of winds and waves 
among the crags was so hideous that they could not 
for a long time hear each other's call, and the worst oi 
fears for each other were added to theh' own dismay. 
But they somehow blundered upon the path as it 
emerged from the wild rocks, and together walked 
the beach to their hotel, soaking and half frozen. 
But all those trying experiences fade when the skin is 
dry, and the sweet sleep of healthy youth comes with 
its comforting ol)livion ; only the gorgeous landscapes, 
and the romantic places, like the memories of boyhood, 
remain to shape the dreams. 

Bayard was shocked by the miserable condition of 
the Irish peasantry, and his description of their huts, 
and their appearance, given in his letters, shows great 
sympathy for their distress, and great disgust at their 
degraded customs. On his way to Greenock from 
Port Rush, he fell in with a company of them, who 
chanced to take the same steamer, and he did not 
enjoy their drunken and beastly songs and riots. But 
on his trip from Greenock, up the Clyde to Dumbar- 
ton, he had more acceptable companionship, and in 
his book he refers, with a most touching simplicity, to 
the music of a strolling musician on board the boat, 
who played "Hail Columbia" and "Home, Sweet 
Home." 



54 LIFE OF BAVAliD TAYLOR. 

Old Scotland ! Noble old hills ! Charming lakes, 
and enchanting valleys ! How like the awakened 
memories of loved faces, they come back to us when 
we hear the word "Dumbarton" ! What exciting tales 
of Baliol, of Wallace, of Bruce, of Queen Mary, of 
Cromwell, come again as we recall the sugar-loaf 
rock, on which the remnant of the old fortress stands ! 
Those bright youths must have feasted on the associa 
tions connected with Dumbarton. As they peered 
from Wallace's tower, handled Wallace's sword, and 
gazed over the wide landscape, with the sites of 
battle-fields, castles, palaces, the home of Bruce, the 
cottage of Wallace, the beautiful valleys of the Clyde 
and Leven, the majestic Ben Lomond, and the crests 
of the Highlands, they grew in intellectual stature, 
and breathed a moral atmosphere as pure as the air 
that encircled the flagstaff at the summit. There is 
no education like the actual contact with the scenes 
connected with heroic self-sacrifice, to train young 
men for patriots and poets. No discipline is more 
necessary to the development of a broad and virtuous 
manhood among any class of young men, than studious 
travel in foreign countries. To young Bayard, lacking 
other culture than the few years at the district school, 
the few months at the academy, and the studious 
perusal of histories and poems, this experience was 
of vast importance. Its beneficial effects were seen 
throughout his life, and frequently show themselves 
in his editorials, poems, novels, and narratives. 



DUMBARTON. 55 

At Dumbarton, Bayard had his first narrow escape, 
and he said that when he reached the ground, after dar- 
ing to scale, for flowers, the precipice up which Wallace 
climbed With his followers for glory and fatherland, he 
was in such a tremor of terror, in view of his having 
so narrowly escaped death, that he could scarcely 
speak. The unusual strength of a little tuft of wild 
grass, growing in a crevice of the cliff, had saved him 
from being dashed to pieces. It must have given him 
a very vivid impression of the daring feats of those old 
Scotch warriors, who not only faced these perpendicular 
walls, but fearlessly encountered the foes at the top. 

From Dumbarton, Bayard and his friends walked 
through the valley of the River Leven to Loch 
Lomond. All his letters and contributions to the 
newspapers speak of this walk as one of the most 
enjoyable of all his rambles. In his "Views Afoot," 
with which every reader is or should be familiar, he 
mentions it as a glorious walk. The pastoral beauty 
of the fields, the clearness of the stream, the ivy- 
grown towers, the dense forests, the early home of 
Smollett, whose dashing pen astonished the kingdom 
in 1748, the summer parks of Scottish noblemen, the 
mild, soothing August sunshine, were a combination 
rarely found, and when found as rarely appreciated. 

These young travellers had been diligent readers, 
and, when the steamer hurried them over the lake, 
the appearance of Ben Lomond and Ben Voirlich, of 
** Bull's Rock," and Rob Roy's Cave, of Inversnaid 



56 LIFE OF BAYARD TaYLOR. 

and Glen Falloch, called up the shades of the Camp* 
bells, Macgregors, Malcolms, Rothesay s, Macfarlanes, 
Macphersons ; making each beach and rock along 
Loch Lomond a feature of romantic interest.- 

With youthful enthusiasm. Bayard clambered to the 
rugged top of Ben Lomond, having waded through 
deep morass and thorny thicket, to reach it, and, from 
that lookout, gazed around on the peaks of lesser 
mountains, down upon the sweet Lomond lake, away 
to the oceans on either side of Scotland, discerning 
the smoke over Glasgow, the dark plains of Ayr, 
and, but for a mist, the embattled towers of Stirling 
and Edinburgh. After a short stop, he descended 
with his old companions, and a new one (he was con- 
stantly finding new friends), along the slippery, stony 
slopes ; and, after a dinner of oatmeal cakes and milk 
at a cottage near the base, trudged and waded on 
through that wild tract of woodland and swamp to 
Loch Katrine. There was the home of poetry. The 
great forests, through which the Clan-Alpine horns had 
echoed, the dense forest, through which the scarfs and 
bows did gleam in the old days of the Highland clans, 
had disappeared. The blossoming heather and bare 
rocks made a sorry substitute. But to Bayard, 
whose life was set to j^oetry, who had so often studied 
and declaimed of Fitz- James and Roderick Dhu, and 
who had often dreamed of the Ellen's Isle, and the 
gathering clans, as Walter Scott described them, it 
must have been an enchanted spot. One may recito 



LOCH KATRINE. 57 

and analyze for half a century that poem, and may flatter 
himself that he has detected all its beauty, and under- 
stands all its historic references ; but one hour on 
Loch Katrine is worth more than all that. There the 
reader lives the poem, and it is a part of his being 
ever more. Bayard felt compensated there for all the 
sufferings, by sea and by land, which he had experienced. 
He gazed fondly upon the glassy, land-locked water ; 
he studied closely the features, manners, and songs of 
the Highland boatmen, those descendants of the old 
clans ; he sketched, with the keenest interest, Ben 
Ann, Ben Venue, the gate of the Trosachs, and the 
curved lines of the sandy shore, and he awoke the 
echoes at the Goblin's Cave and Beal-nam-bo. Rich 
experiences ! In such does the youth develop fast into 
a cultured manhood. 

From Loch Katrine, the party walked by way of 
Loch Vennachar, Coilantogle Ford, and Ben Ledi, to 
Doune, — the home of royalty during the sixteenth 
century, and whose old castle is still a majestic ruin. 
Thence through the plains to Stirling Castle, crowned 
and battle-honored, and looking down on the valleys 
of the Forth and Allan Water, and out upon the 
bloody fields of Bannockburn and Sheriff-muir. 
Having inspected the dungeons and halls of the 
castle, looked Avith horror upon the spot wheie 
royalty murdered a friend, and threw the body to the 
dogs.; and after contemplating the grave of the girlish 
martyrs, they hastily took the shortest route to Glas- 



58 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



gow, and thence to the home of Burns, where a great 
celebration, or memorial gatheruig, was to be held, to 
honor the memory of the " rustic bard," on the banks 
of his own " Bonnie Doon." 



VISIT TO ArR. 59 



CHAPTER VIII. 

\ isit to the Home of Burns. — The Poet's Cottage. — The Cele- 
bration. — Walks and Rides in the Raiu. — Edinburgh. — Its 
Associations. — The Teachings of History. — ?Tonie of Drum- 
mond. — Abbotsford. — Melrose. — Jedburgh Abbey. — New- 
castle-on-Tyiie. 

Bayard's visit to Ayr was the first of a long series 
of like visitations to the homes of celebrated poets, and 
being then a novel experience was doubly enjoyed. It 
may be that the similar occupation, and like inspiration, 
which characterized both himself and Burns, made the 
spot more attractive. Had they not both followed the 
plough through the thick sward ? Had not both miliied 
the cows ; drove the horses to the water ; planted the 
corn ; dug up the weeds ; cut the hay, and all the 
while sang and recited original verses ? Had he not 
been ridiculed by his playmates, and sneered at by his 
neighbors, in common with that great poet of Scotland ? 
To look over the farm on which Burns toiled ; to be 
shown the spot on which it is claimed Burns over- 
turned — • 

" That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble," 

the home of the "mousie," and to be shown the 
cottage he was born in, and the scenes which lu- 



60 LIFE OF liAYARD TAYLOR. 

spired his songs, interesting as they are to the writer 
of prose, must have been peculiarly satisfactory to 
him. He does not speak of it, however, with the 
enthusiasm one would expect, and it is quite prob- 
able that he was not yet wholly inured to the incon- 
veniences of a wet climate, and could not think or 
muse hi a crowd as satisfactorily as when dry and alone. 
When he arrived in the town, the streets were filled 
by an immense throng, and there could have been little 
satisfiiction in trying to foil into poetical dreams. It 
is a great satisfiiction to those of Bayard's friends who 
have loved him, and put their faith in him, to know 
that he put himself on record in some of his early let- 
ters, in no light terms, as having an unutterable 
disgust for the drunken brawling which went on in the 
name of Burns that day in Ayr. He felt, with great 
keenness, the disgrace which every American feels that 
it is to Scotland, that the old cottage, so sacred for its 
associations as the birth-place of Burns, should be 
occupied as a drinking-saloon, and be crowded with 
intoxicated vagabonds. It seemed like making a dog- 
kennel of a chapel in St. Paul's. An}i;hing but genius, 
intellect, or wit characterizes the crowd that usually 
frequent Burns' Cottage on such days ; and it is said to 
have been, in 1844, the resort of a more- beastly class 
than are those wretches who get intoxicated there now, 
and, naturally, on such a great day as that on which 
Bayard visited it, every Scotsman who indulged at all 
became furiously drunk. Besides that inconvenience, 



THE BURNS CELEBRATION. 61 

the trustees of the monument, on the day when so 
many thousands came to see it and its treasures, voted 
to lock it up ; and Bayard, with the others, was shut 
out from its interesting collection of relics and memen- 
toes. Still further, it was so arranged by the marshals 
of the occasion, that the grand stand, with its literary 
feast and the ceremonies appurtenant to the occasion, 
were shut out from the populace to whom the poet 
sang, and Bayard being only a strange boy, with no 
more of a title than Robert Burns had, was oblisrcd to 
content himself with a seat on the Yid2:e of the " bri<z 
o' Doon." He did see old Alloway kirk, and heard 
its bell. He saw within its ruined walls the rank 
weeds, and without, the graves of the poet's ancestry. 
He did have a cheerful pedestrian tour ; for the home 
of Burns, with Alloway kirk and the bonnie Doon, aw, 
three miles from the city of Ayr in open country. 
He saw the sister and sons of the poet. He heard the 
assembled thousands sing, "Ye ])anks and braes o' 
bonnie Doon." He saw a grandson of Tarn O'Shanter. 
Me had to walk the three miles, returnino; throu<ih 
mud and rain, and he had to stand in an open car, 
exposed to a driving rain-storm, throughout the two 
hours' ride by railroad to Glasgow. How different his 
reception then, as a boy and unknown, from that whicli 
he received in his riper age, after his fame was secured, 
at the home of Germany's greatest poet. 

We follow Bayard in his first tour in Europe with 
greater detail than we shall do with other journeys, 



62 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

because in this he developed so much of that charactei 
which made him famous. History being written, not 
for the dead, but for the instruction and encourage- 
ment of the living, should show clearly how a great life 
was attained, as a guide for similar genius in the days 
to come. In a volume of hasty sketches like this, we 
cannot hope to do the work as thoroughly as we should 
so much love to do it ; but as far as can be done at 
this early day, we give those events which had the 
greatest eflfect upon his life as a writer of prose and 
poetry. 

He must have feasted in Edinburgh. Richest store- 
house in Scotland, for all such as follow letters ! There 
was the monument to Scott, suggestive of the most 
beautiful in art, but so insignificant as a reminder of 
him, while the walls of Salisbury Crags, and the dome 
of Arthur's Seat, froAvn beyond and above it. There 
was Holy rood Palace, with its stains of blood, the 
couch of the beautiful queen, and the collections of 
historical relics. No place but the Tower of London 
has received such attention from gifted and famous lit- 
erary men. Historians, poets, philosophers, educators, 
preachers, and lawyers have written and discoursed 
upon it. There was Calton Hill, with its monuments 
to great men. There was the great University, and 
there was the old Castle, that sat like a crown on the 
head of the city. All had been described by the most 
facile pens. All were full of living interest, and when 
Bayard tried to describe them, be found himself 



EDINBURGH AND ABBOTSFORD. 63 

attempting to compete with the greatest essayists of 
the English-speaking world. The Grass Market, where 
Porteous was executed ; Cowgate Street, with its aris- 
tocratic associations ; St. Giles' Church, with its mem- 
ories of John Knox and the Heart of Mid-Lothian, were 
described by him, about which it is a kind of literary 
sacrilege to speak in other than classic language. It 
was a school that included every other, and Bayard 
was an apt and diligent scholar. 

A short distance from Edinburgh, the pedestrians 
saw the birthplace and hermitage of Drummond. It 
is a delightful, sequestered chateau, called " Ilaw- 
thornden," and in it the poet wrote nearly all his 
elesrant sonnets, and it was there that old Ben Jon- 
son, after a walk from London, was entertained by 
Drummond, and Drummond was in turn entertained 
by Jonson. Going by the way of Galashiels and 
Selkirk, the party visited Abbotsford and its environs, 
where the immortal Scott lived and wrote. In the 
beautiful mansion which Scott built, and in which he 
wrote his most popular works, they read his manu- 
scripts ; sat at his desk ; wandered in his gardens ; 
gazed intently over the wide lawn and the distant 
Tweed ; scrutinized the enormous variety of relics 
which had been collected by that antiquarian, to whom 
kings and queens were glad to become tributary. 
Thence they walked along tho hard and smooth high- 
way to old Melrose. 

Suins they would see in the near England, and op 



64 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

the distant continent, which would enclose a dozen 
abbeys such as this ; Gothic arches they would enter 
which would make those of Melrose seem as a toy ; and 
ivy and carving and chancels would be noticed, so 
much more rich and beautiful, that these would sufler 
sadly if put in comparison. But nowhere else in all 
the wide world would they find a locality made more 
interesting than this. The associations are almost 
everything. And to the initiated, the great magician^ 
Scott, still speaks in the groined arches, flowering pil- 
lars, old clock, and willow-like windows. Melrose 
Abbey is a marked illustration of the power of a 
master-mind to give influence, life, and interest to 
inanimate things. Bayard felt this* truth and men- 
tioned it. He read "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" in 
the shadow of the arches, and imagined how the ruins 
glowed when the grave of the wizard opened and the 
book was revealed. Who knows but it was there, in the 
presence of those stirring associations, that he first con- 
ceived the plan which led him to make classic in poetry 
and fiction the fields, hills, and Quakers of his native 
county. Had he lived ten years longer than he did, 
his loved Kennett might have been as classic in song 
and story as Abbotsford itself. 

From Melrose the young pedestrians walked to Jed- 
burgh, omitting the delightful excursion to Diyburgh, 
but passing the home of Pringle, who had been the 
founder of "Blackwood's Magazine," and who had 
been also a poet and wanderer like Bayard. While 



CULTURED TRAVELLERS. 65 

passing the Cheviot Hills, the party met an excursion- 
ist in a carriage, fast asleep, which appeared to amuse 
Bayard very much. Probably he afterwards saw more 
amusing scenes than that, wherein travellers did not 
appreciate their privileges. The writer, as late as the 
summer of 1878, saw an American who had worked 
most industriously to lay up the funds to visit Switzer- 
land, ride up the entire ascent of the glorious Alps at 
St. Gothard, on the top of a coach, fast asleep. Such 
marvels does the world of humanity contain. Bayard 
did not sleep when anything of interest called upon 
him for investigation, nor when the beauties of nature 
were to be enjoyed. *They crossed the border between 
Scotland and England, over the battle-fields of the 
Percys, and by streams that were often, in days past, 
actually swollen with blood. There, " Marmion," with 
all its tales historical, and legends mythical, was quoted 
and lived as only the cultured traveller can live it. 
There was instruction in every scene, every stranger, 
and every inn. How well Bayard availed himself of 
their lessons, is illustrated in all his excellent letters 
on foreign travel, and in his books compiled from them. 
At Newcastle he noticed a group of miners begging in 
the streets, and when he heard how they had struck 
for higher wages, because they could not longer exist 
on the pittance allowed them, and how they and their 
families were turned out upon the streets to starve, his 
indignation was very great, and in his book he utters a 
prophecy that soon that murmur from the oppressed 
6 



6Q LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

people would increase to a roar, and be heard " by the 
dull ears of power." From Newcastle he went by boat 
to Loudon, reaching that city in the early morning near 
the end of August. 



THE CITY OF LONDON. fi? 



CHAPTER IX. 

Visit in London. — Exhibition of Relics. — The Lessons of Travel. 
— Historiciil Association. — Loudon to Ostend.— The Cathedral 
at Aix-la-Chapelle. — The Great Cathedral at Cologne. — Voy- 
age up the Rhiue. — Longfellow's " Hyperion." — Visit to 
Frankfort. — Kind Friends. — Reaches Heidelberg. — Climbing 
the Mountains. 

London is a world in itself, as has often been writ- 
ten, and, to such an impressible mhid as that of 
Bayard, was a phice replete with pleasure and instruc- 
tion. London instructs by two methods ; one by 
agreeable, and the other by disagreeable examples. 
Bayard was equally taught by both. There was A\'est- 
minster Abbey, with its numberless tombs of the tal- 
ented and noble ; and there was the Tower of London, 
with its dungeons and beheading blocks. There were 
the palatial residences of the West End, and there tlie 
hovels and holes of the Wych Street district. There 
were the great mercantile houses of Holborn and Re- 
gent Street, and there were the gambling dens of Drury 
Lane. There were the magnilicent galleries of art, at 
the Museum, at the Palaces, at AYestminster, and at 
Kensington ; and there were the dirty, slimy exhibitions 
of marred humanity along the wharves of the Thames. 
There were the zoological wonders of the parks, and 



SS LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

there were the dog-shows, and cock-pits of the St. 
Giles Rookery. There was the palace of the Queen, 
and there the Old Baile}^ There was the office 
of the "Thunderer" (Daily Times), and there were 
the attics from whence flowed the vilest trash that 
man ever printed. There were Hyde Park, Regent's 
Park, St. James Park, and the broad squares ; and 
there were the filthy alleys and narrow lanes about 
London Bridge. There were the Rothschilds, and 
there the poor Micawbers and deserted Nicholas 
Nicklebys. The richest, the poorest, the best, the 
worst; the most cultivated, and the most ignorant; 
the most powerful monarch, and the most degraded 
fishmongers. Extremes ! Extremes that meet in 
everything there. They all instruct by teaching the 
beholder what he ought to be, and what he ought not 
to be. One sees much in London that ought not to 
have been ; and, strange to relate, many of the relics 
connected with such things, are exhibited with great 
pride. If there is any one thing above all others, for 
which the American should be thankful, it is for the 
fact that the dungeon, the rack, the wheel, the thumb- 
screw, the guillotine, the gibbet, the headsman's block, 
the deadly hates of royalty, the cruelty of kings, and 
the jealousy of queens, have no place in the history 
of the Republic of the West. Yet there, somehow, 
the officials and guides who open to the public the 
records of the past and show visitors their institutions, 
give the most prominent places to deeds of horrid 



SCENES IN LONDON. 69 

cruelty and shameless murders, as if they took pride 
in such fearful annals. It would seem as if, had our 
rulers butchered in cold blood their sons and daugh- 
ters ; had they cruelly starved their friends and relatives, 
we in America would be ashamed of it. It would be 
regarded as very natural here, if an ancestor was hung 
and quartered and his head carried about on a pole, 
to speak of it as seldom as possible. It would appear 
consistent if, had our national government oppressed 
the weak, degraded the poor, killed inoffensive cap- 
tives, and, for selfish ambition, laid waste the cities 
and fields of an innocent people, we should attempt 
to bury the remembrance of those deeds so deep as to 
make a resurrection impossible. But there, in Europe, 
they appear to revel in the hideous doings of their 
ancestors, and will show you where human heads or 
bands were exhibited, and where noble men and 
women were persecuted to martyrdom, with the air 
of the circus manager who announces the clown. 
Who can hear the guide on London Bridge, "Here 
was posted the bleeding head of Sir William Wallace, 
the Scotch warrior and patriot, while the quarters of 
his body were at Stirling, Berwick, Perth, and New- 
castle," and not curse, with the deepest feeling, the 
people who murdered one of the greatest and best of 

men ? 

It is clear that these things made a strong impression 
upon Bayard, for we find him more frequently and 
more decidedly praising his own land, as he saw more 



70 LIFE OF BAYARD TAVLOR* 

and more of Europe. He saw, also, many of the 
advantages which European nations enjoy in art, 
literature, and commerce, and failed not to suggest 
them to his readers. But, unlike those shallow tour- 
ists, who would ape European manners, and think 
all European institutions should be at once imported 
here, his patriotic regard for the institutions and peo- 
ple of his own land, increased with the desire to 
benefit them. How reverently he speaks of George 
Washington ; how touchingly docs he speak with the 
European peasants who accost him, of the home of 
the free beyond the great ocean. 

A whole week those young men searched the great 
city for valuable information. They slept and ate in 
the rudest of taverns, and tramped the city with the 
workmen and the beggars, but they were gathering 
the forces for a useful life. Bayard was filled with the 
sublimity of the mighty human torrent that, like a 
tide, rolls into London in the morning, dashes about 
the highways during the day, and surges outward at 
night. He felt the grandeur of St. Paul's, the con- 
flicting and exciting associations of ^7estminster, the 
marvellous feat of tunnelling under the Thames, the 
enormous wealth of churches, monuments, halls, and 
galleries, and carried away with him to the Continent 
a very complete idea of the institutions and the queer 
customs of the great metropolis. 

From London, the party proceeded to Dover, and 
from thence to Ostend and Bruges. They travelled in 



AIX-LA-CIIAPELLE. 71 

the cheapest manner, walkhig wherever practicable, and 
going from Bruges to Ghent in a canal -boat, thence hy 
railroad across the border to Aix-la-Chapelle. Here 
was another treat. The description which he gave in 
his letters of his visit to the old Cathedral, where rest 
the remains of Charlemagne, w^as one of the most 
vivid recitals to be found in the annals of travel. For 
some reason, he so abridged it in his book, as to take 
away the finest and most original delineations. Every 
reader of his first narration, who may never have 
visited Aix-la-Chapelle, can in imagination see the old 
Cathedral, with its shrines, its antique windows, and 
the shadows of saints on the floor, and hear the sweet 
undulations of the organ's solemn peal. While to the 
traveller who follows him through those aisles, and 
under those magnificent arches, his words give life and 
language to the pillars, altars, and luminous decora- 
tions. To the least poetic or sentimental of travellers, 
it is a solemn place ; and if so to them, how deep and 
impressive must it have been to a soul so full of emo- 
tion as that of Bayard ! There he wrote his well- 
known poem, "The Tomb of Charlemagne." 

This grand old pile Avas succeeded next day by the 
great Gothic Cathedral, at Cologne, which was not 
then finished, is not now completed, and will never see 
the end of the mason's labors, becanse the time taken 
in the construction is so long that the very stone decays, 
and must be replaced at the base by the time the deli- 
cate tracery of the towers is set on those skyward 



72 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

heights. The structure must be constantly in process 
of reconstruction, from the bottom, upwards. When 
Bayard looked upon this wonderful building, which 
since 1248 had been in an uncompleted state, two 
hundred and fifty years having been spent in active 
labor, he said it impressed him most deeply, by way of 
comparison. Two hundred and forty years before 
America was discovered, the foundations of that 
church were laid, and here they are working on it 
still ! By such lessons is an American made to know 
his place in the history of the world. Had the his- 
tory of these old lands been less barbarous and cruel, 
we should feel humble indeed. But in view of what 
the old folks have done, we may be thankful that we 
are young, and have our record yet to write. But the 
fact that we are not so old, so great, so artistic, or so 
cultured as we have flattered ourselves, is wholesome 
information, and as taught by these old Cathedrals of 
Europe, is very necessary to the success of our young 
men. How deeply these things moved Bayard, is seen 
by the very frequent mention we find in his writings, 
of aisle, or arch, or dome, or spire. 

But one of the most attractive spots to that young 
voyager, in all his wanderings in Europe, he saw while 
going up the Rhine, from Cologne to Mayence. He 
viewed with satisfaction the vineyards and villages 
along the banks ; he was charmed with the crags and 
crumbling towers of the innumerable old castles which 
ornament the tops of all the most prominent hills and 



LONGFELLOW'S HYPERION. 73 

mountains. The walled cities, the legendary caves 
and grottos, the most exquisite fables that account for 
the miraculous construction of cliff, and convent, and 
crusaders' halls, all came upon him as he glided by 
them on the muddy river, as dreams come to the 
drinker of hashish. But beyond all these in interest 
to our young wanderer, was the little walled town of 
Boppart, whose feudal history is nearly lost, but whose 
romantic connection with Longfellow's " Hyperion," has 
given it a fresh lease of life. Bayard there recalled 
his life at home, and his days of anxious waiting; 
for, had not this same "Hyperion," with entrancing 
interest, spurred on his hope to one day travel along 
the Rhine ? Had not this same " Hyperion " given the 
impulse that started his cousin on such a great journey 
to the university at Heidelberg ? And were not those 
houses in the town of Boppart, and was not that 
cottage the very Inn of the " Star," and might not that 
woman, near the shore, be "Paul Flemming's" boat- 
woman? Oh! grand and revered Longfellow ! when 
we note how many a life, like these, has turned upon 
the reading of your inspired words, one feels as if to 
have seen your face and heard your voice, and to have 
been beneath the same roof, was an honor greater than 
kings could bestow ! 

But Boppart, Lurlei Berg, Oberwisel, Bingen, 
and Geisenheim were soon left behind, and Mayence, 
with its Cathedral six centuries old, its walls and for- 
tresses, welcomed them to its monotonous shades. 



1 4 LIFE OF BArARD TAYLOR. 

A beautiful trait of Bayard's character comes grace- 
fully into view as we read his grateful acknowledg- 
ments of the kindnesses he received. On his first 
walk in his apprentice days, in Pennsylvania, having 
determined to see some mountains, although he had to 
walk two hundred miles to view them, he was kindly 
served at a well, on the way, by a farmer's girl, who 
cheerfully drew the ])ucket from the well and ran for a 
glass, that he, a dusty, thirsty stranger, might drink 
without further fatigue ; and in his later years he 
records the fact in his book, with the sweetest expres- 
sions of thankfulness. So when he arrived at Frank- 
fort, and was kindly received and entertained by Mr. 
Kichard S. Willis, the American consul, brother of 
Bayard's old friend, Nathaniel P. Willis, he sits down at 
once, and in his letters to his friends, and in his public 
correspondence, he speaks of the generosity and 
thoughtfulness- of his old friend, and the hospitable and 
cultured characteristics of his new friend. They were 
noble friends, who made for him a home at their fireside 
in Frankfort, and deserve the thanks of every admirer 
of Bayard Taylor. His thanks they had throughout a 
long life, and not only thanks, but grateful deeds. 

It was Bayard's purpose to go to Heidelberg, with 
his cousin, and give himself to close study, at the 
University, or with private tutors ; but just how he 
was going to obtain the means to pay his expenses was 
something of an enigma. It may be that his good 
fortune in the outset made him too confident and 



At IIElDELBftRO. 75 

careless in regard to other undertakings. At all 
events, his stay in Heidelbeig was much shorter than 
he had at first intended that it should be, and his studies 
were much more broken and superficial than his letters 
show he thought they would l)e. He was not consti- 
tuted for close, hard, metaphysical study, and made 
but little attempts in that direction, after he arrived at 
Heidelberg. He loved the grand old Castle better 
than the whittled benches of the University. He en- 
joyed the Kaisersthul and the lesser mountains, far 
more than the monotonous recital of German theories. 
The river Neckar called him in its murmurs, the clouds 
beckoned to him as they flew over the Heligen Berg, 
the wind called for him as it sighed around the vine- 
yards of Ziegelhausen, and all thoughts of private, 
quiet study fled at the summons. So he climbed the 
mountains. It was always a passion with him to gain 
an altitude as high as possible, and look out upon the 
world. He tells how, when a boy, he ventured out of 
a chamber window in the old farm-house at Kennett, 
and seeing a row of slats which the carpenters had 
used for steps in ascending the roof, he sallied forth, 
and there astride of the roof, gained his first view of a 
landscape. He said afterward, that the roof appeared 
to be so high and the view so extensive, that he im- 
agined he could see Niagara Falls. Whether this 
inclination to climb up came to him through the stories 
of his old Swiss nurse, whose bed-time stories were of 
the mighty Alps and their towering cones, or whether 



76 LIFE OF BAYARD TAVLOR. 

it was an hereditary trait in his nature, none may l)e 
able to decide. He was certainly prone to go upwards, 
and had a tendency for horizontal motion equally as 
strong. He would not remain stationary ; hence, at 
Heidelberg, he inspected every nook and crevice of the 
picturesque old Castle, crouched through its conduits, 
rapped its ponderous tun, scaled its roofless and crum- 
bling walls, rushed into the recesses of the adjacent 
thickets, and tested the celebrated beer at the students' 
resorts. He joined excursion parties which visited 
the neighboring mountains, and after he had been 
there a month, he knew the fields, rocks, trees, val- 
leys, dells, and peaks, as well as a native, and appears 
to have loved them with a patriotic regard almost equal 
to the eldest burgher. 



FROM HEIDELBERG TO FRANKTORT. 77 



CHAPTER X. 

study in Frankfort. — Lack of Money. — Different Effect of Want 
on Travellers.— Bayard's Privations.— Again sets out on Foot.— 
Visit to the Hartz Mountains. — The Brocken. — Scenes in 
"Faust." — Locality in Literature. — The Battle-field at Leip- 
sic. — Auerbach's Cellar. 

For the purposes of this work, an outline of Bayard's 
travels is all that can be attempted ; except where some 
remarkable incident occurred that had an unusual in- 
fluence on his subsequent life. Leaving Heidelberg in 
the latter part of October (1844), Bayard walked 
through the Odenwald to Frankfort, where he could 
pursue his study of the German language, and observe 
the customs and characteristics of the people to better 
advantage and at a less expense. In attempting to see 
Europe on such a limited allowance of money, he 
necessarily met with many inconveniences and priva- 
tions. His sufferings were at times most intense. He 
knew what it was to fast for whole days; he felt the 
pains of blistered bare feet. He was exposed to the 
severest storms of summer and winter ; he was familiar 
with the homes of beggary and the hard, swarming 
beds of third-class tav^-ns. He must have sufiered 
beyond his own estima't for, as he so well says, the 
pains of travel are soor ^rgotten and the pleasures 



78 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

vividly remembered. There was a youthful abandon 
in his almost reckless adventures which startles the 
reader of his tours. But yet the pains he felt so 
keenly, the dangers he encountered so frequently, did 
not seem to abate his enthusiasm for the great works 
and beautiful scenes which Europe exhibits. To find 
ourselves in a strange city, where no one speaks our 
native language ; where it is not possible that any 
person can know us or any of our friends ; without 
money, or food, or work, is one of the most dis- 
heartening situations that can be imagined. Yet such 
an experience came often to Bayard. It would seem 
as if, on some occasions, he ran into such difficulties 
needlessly and for very wantonness. Yet, as was 
sometimes the experience of the writer, and from one 
of which dangerous situations Mr. Taylor generously 
rescued him, there somehow opens a way out from 
such ventures, which is found on the very verge of 
starvation and despair. But the trait of character, 
which in Bayard commanded such respect, was some- 
thing so unusual, that his daring example cannot be 
safely followed by the multitude. It is far better to 
have a supply of money for the necessary expenses of 
travel in Europe or Asia, than to run risks for the sake 
of the romance which Bayard found in such straits. To 
many tourists, even,the parks of Homburg, the castle 
of Drachenfels, or the palace of the Vatican, would 
become insignificant baubles before the stronger de- 
mands of th^ body for food and raiment. But seldom 



LIFE IN FRANKFORT. 79 

did any fatigue or annoyance or loss, abate his wonder- 
ful zeal in his search for the poetical, the strange, the 
historical, and the beautiful. Some of his most ex- 
quisite descriptions of art or nature, were written from 
notes made when his stomach was empty and his limbs 
chilled with wet and cold. Such young men are few ; 
and for one with less perseverance, endurance, or 
genius to attempt such things on such a scale, would 
be to meet with disheartening failure. 

Of his life in Frankfort, during the winter of 1845, 
he often speaks with great satisfaction. He made 
excellent progress in the language, and in that under- 
standing of the habits of the people which Mr. Greeley 
had so pointedly urged upon him as an ambitious 
aspirant for the favors of the "Tribune." He comes 
out of that study a matured thinker. His descriptions 
assume a more thoughtful tone. His sympathies arc 
more often awakened for the people, and he sees as a 
man sees, and less juvenile are all his undertakings and 
communications. He there acquired a love of German 
poetry, and became acquainted with many of the noted 
men of Frankfort. He visited the aged Mendelssohn, 
and tells with charming simplicity how he was received 
by the composer of "St. Paul "and "Elijah." Thus 
introduced to German literature, art, and music, ho 
entered again upon his travels at the opening of spring, 
with new and increasmg appreciativeness. 

Again, on foot, he went into the untried way of 
Europe. His fii-st attraction was for the Hart^ Moun- 



80 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

tains, so intimately connected with Goethe's "Faust," 
with which Bayard was ah^eady in love, and which 
he afterwards translated in a masterly manner. 
So he went through Friedberg and Giessen, into 
Hesse-Cassel, making the acquaintance of peasants 
and merchants on his way, and moralizing upon 
the curious circumstance that the descendants of 
the Hessians, who fought so doggedly at Brandy- 
wine, should receive so hospitably the descendant 
of those who filled the "plains of Trenton with the 
short Hessian graves." Thence by Miinden, Gottingen 
and Osterode , enduring sickening fatigues and dangerous 
exposure, he reached the Brocken mountain, where, 
through thickets, rocks, chasms, snow and cold, he at 
last rested in a cottage at its summit, amid the associa- 
tions awakened by the weird tales of witches and the 
superstitious explanations of that singular illusion, — 
the " Spectre of the Brocken." If he had any " wish " 
on that " Walpurgis night," which he i^asscd on the high- 
est mountain of the Hartz range, it was probably to be 
relieved of the tortures which his weak frame endured, 
and from which the physician had failed to relieve him 
It would not be surprising if he recited from " Faust ' 
the words of scene IV. : — 

"Through some familiar tone, retrieving 
My thoughts from torment, led me on, 
And sweet, clear echoes came, deceiving 
A faith bequeathed from childhood's dawn, 
Yet now I curse whate'er entices 
And snares the soul with visions vain ; 



THE BKOCKEN OF FAUST. 81 

With dazzling cheats and dear devices 
Confines it in this cave of pain ! 
Cursed be, at once, the high ambition 
Wherewith the mind itself deludes ! 
Cursed be the glare of apparition, 
That on the finer sense intrudes." 

We cannot forbear to add another quotation from 
the same Act, so illustrative is it of Bayard's note- 
taking life : — 

" No need to tell me twice to do it ! 
I think, how useful 'tis to write ; 
For what one has in black and white, 
One carries home and then goes through it." 

His visit to the Brocken was one of the most fas- 
cinating trips of his whole pedestrian tour, notwith- 
standing his narrow escape from death in the snow, 
and from destruction by falling into the partially con- 
cealed caves that beset his way to the summit. He 
mentioned long afterward the view he had from the 
summit-house, through the rifts in the clouds, of the 
plains and cities of Germany. Thirty cities and sev- 
eral hundred villages lay within sight, and all of them 
more or less closely interwoven with the literature of 
Germany. The plains of Brunswick and Magdeburg 
stretch away for seventy miles, with all the various 
shadings of green intermingled with the sparkling sil- 
ver of stream and lake. It is a scene so grand that no 
pen could portray its sublimity and no tongue accur 
rate'3' coBvey an idea of its varied beauty. With that 
6 



62 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

romantic persistency which no amount of fatigue over- 
came, Bayard descended the mountain by that rugged 
and nerve-shaking path up which Faust was said to 
have ascended with Mephistopheles ( scene XXI. of 
Taylor's translation ) who says : — 

'' How sadly rises, incomplete aud ruddy, 
The moon's lone disk, with its belated glow, 
And lights so dimly, that, as one advances, 
At every step one strikes a rock or tree ! 
Let us, then, use a Jack-o'-Lantern's glances : 
I see one yonder, burning merrily. 
Ho, there ! my friend ! I '11 levy thine attendance : 
Why waste so vainly thy resplendence ? 
Be kind enough to light us up the steep." 

After which Faust, in a musing mood, looks down 
from the Brocken heights and replies : — 

*' How strangely glimmers through the hollows 
A dreary light, like that of dawn ! 
Its exhalation tracks aud follows 
The deepest gorges, faint aud wan. 
Here steam, there rolling vapor swcepoth ; 
Here burns the glow through film and haze: 
Now like a tender thread it creepeth. 
Now like a fountain leaps and plays. 
Here winds away, aud in a hundred 
Divided veins the valley braids : 
There in a corner pressed and sundered, 
Itaelf detaches, spreads and fades. 
Here gush the sparkles incandescent 
Like scattered showers of golden sand ; ^ 
But, see! in all their height ati^resent, 
The rocky ramparts blazing stand. " 



LEIPSIC AND DRESDEN. 83 

As Bayard leaped and stumbled down the rocky de- 
clidty into the narrow gorge that there divides the 
mountains to give an outlet for the river Bode, the very 
difficulties bound him closer to Goethe's writinsrs. He 
felt again how important a thing it is in literature to 
connect it by patriotic links with some actual land- 
scape, and how much more vivid and permanent are 
the lessons an author would teach when the reader 
visits the mountains, plains, cities, buildings, and peo- 
ple mentioned in books of classic worth. Thus learn- 
ing and growing the young traveller plodded on from 
inn to inn and viUas^e to villaoce. 

Leipsic, which he reached a day or two after leaving 
the Brocken, was a place of great interest to Bayard, 
as it is in fact to all travellers. But the interest in any 
city or country visited by a tourist depends so much 
upon his previous reading, and the taste and opportu- 
nities for reading are so diverse, that it seldom happens 
that any two persons in the same party enjoy the same 
scene with equal satisfaction. Bayard had read of 
Leipsic and Dresden in his boyhood when other boys 
were catching rabbits or playing ball, and as when he 
sees the great citadel at Magdeburg which once held 
Baron Trenck a prisoner, so when at Leipsic he looks 
over the field where Blucher and Schwartzenberg met 
Napoleon, he is startled with the vividness of the pic- 
tures in his imagination. Hundreds of thousands rush- 
ing to combat and scattering in retreat while smoke rolls 



84 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

upward from hundreds of cannon and the streams are 
choked with piles of bloody dead ! 

There too was Auerbach's Cellar, in which Goethe's 
Faust and Mephistopheles are so humorously placed. 
There was the same drinking-saloon, there the descend- 
ant of the old bar-keeper, and there the same character- 
istic crowd of loafers, as when Faust and Mephistoph- 
eles drank there, and when amid songs and jokes, the 
latter drew all kinds of wine from the gimlet holes in 
the leaf of the old wooden table. Bayard's estimate of 
the people appears to have confirmed that of Mephis- 
topheles who says ( scene V. ) : — 

" Before all else I bring thee hither 
Where boon companions meet together, 
To let thee see how smooth life runs away. 
Here, for the folk, each day 's a holiday : 
With little wit, and ease to suit them, 
They whirl in narrow, circling trails. 
Like kittens playing with their tails : 
And if no headache persecute them, 
So long the host may credit give, 
They merrily and careless live." 

The peasantry still crowd the cellar, still sing the 
old lays, and each day tell over again the old legend of 
Mephistopheles' miraculous exit. 

" I saw him, with these eyes, upon a wine cask riding 
Out of the cellar door, just now. " 



4T DRESDEN. 85 



CHAPTER XI. 

Pictures at Dresden. — Raphael's Madonna. — Bayard's Art Educa- 
tion. — His Exalted Ideas of Art. — His Enthusiasm. — Visits 
Bohemia. — Stay in Prague. — The Curiosities of Vienna. — 
Tomb of Beethoven. — Respect for Religion. — Listens to 
Strauss. — View of Lintz. — Munich and its Decorations. — The 
Home of Schiller. — Poetic Landscapes, and Charming People. 
— Statue by Thorwaldsen. — Walk to Heidelberg. 

At Dresden, Bayard visited the picture-gallery, for 
the purpose of seeing Raphael's Madonna and Child, 
known as the Madonna di San Sisto. His description 
of that painting, so unfortunately abridged in his book, 
was one of the finest examples of art criticism to be 
found in print. His appreciation of painting and sculpt- 
ture was remarkable, indeed, for one who never made 
them a professional study, and whose rude sketches 
in pencil in his note books, contahied nearly all of his 
undertakings as an amateur. His soul seemed cast in 
the proper mould for that kind of work, but his hand 
was never trained to materialize the pictures that filled 
the gjilleries of his imagination. He had all those 
finer sensibilities and acute instincts which fitted him 
for art in poetry or stone, and he saw in paintings and 
statuary, beauties or defects which thousands of coldr •• 
but more studious critics failed to notice 



SQ LIFE OF BAYAllD TAYLOR. 

He spoke of that Madonna at Dresden, as a painting 
that moved his whole nature in admiration. He enjoyed 
it. He feasted on it. He read it as one follows an 
exciting romance. He felt the power of the picture 
as Raphael felt it, and seemed to appreciate it even 
more keenly than the artist. How much satisfaction 
and delight he found in the enormous collections of 
art in the Old World, cannot be told or understood by 
any one whose natural genius leads them not in such 
a direction. His mental appetite for such things grew 
so keen, as he went on from city to city and gallery to 
gallery, that he much preferred to leave his meals un- 
tasted, than pass a great painting without study. Like 
the true artist, his mind took in the gi-and ideals, and 
his respect and admiration for the divine handiwork 
in producing man and beast, caused him often to wince 
under the suoforestive and deo^radino^ obtrusiveness of 
fig-leaves and rude drapery in sculpture. The human 
form in all its heavenly beauty and godlike majesty, 
as reproduced in marble by the great artists, was too 
sacred and pure to him, to be marred by the sugges- 
tions of sin. No man or woman will ever become an 
artist, in its highest, noblest sense, until their love for 
l)cauty, simplicity, and purity, lifts them above the 
impressions that arc born of ignorance, vulgarity, and 
sin. Bayard, in after years, thus beautifully wrote of 
sculpture : — 

"In clay the statue stood complete, 
As beautiful a form, and fair, 



POETRY OF ART. SI 

As ever walked a Roman street ■ 
Or breathed the blue Athenian air: 
The perfect limbs, divinely bare, 
Their old, heroic freedom kept, 
■ And in the features, fine and rare, 
A calm, immortal sweetness slept, 

O 'cr common men it towered, a god, 
And smote their meaner life with shame, 
For while its feet the highway trod. 
Its lifted brow was crowiied with flame 
And purified from touch of blame: 
Yet wholly human was the face, 
And over them who saw it came 
The knowledge of their own disgrace. 

It stood, regardless of the crowd. 

And simply showed what men might bo: 

Its solemn beauty disavowed 

The curse of lost humanity. 

Erect and proud, and pure and free, 

It overlooked each loathsome law 

Whereiinto others bend the knee, 

And only what was noble saw." 

The blameless spirit of a lofty aim 

Sees not a line that asks to bo concealed 

By dextrous evasion ; but, revealed 

As truth demands, doth Nature smite with shamo 

Them, who with artifice of ivy-leaf 

Unsex the splendid loins, or shrink the frame 

From life's pure honesty, as shrinks a thief. 

While stands a hero ignorant of blame! 

" Each part expressed its nicely measured share, 
In the mysterious being of the whole : 
Not from the eye or lip looked forth the soul, 
But made her habitation everywhere 
Within the bounds of flesh ; and Art might steal, 
As once, of old, her purest triumphs there." 



88 - LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

This appreciation of the inner feelings of the sculptor 
iind painter, is the more astonishing, hecanse of the 
unusual disadvantages under which he first studied the 
works of the ancient masters. Aching limbs, bruised 
feet, and an empty stomach are not usually aids to the 
critic in forming a judgment of the symmetry or grace 
of any work of art. But his enthusiastic recitals of 
his visits to the celebrated paintings, show no less 
rapture when he saw them in fatigue and hunger, than 
when he looked upon them in rest and bodily satiety. 
Thus, most naturally, he became the companion and 
intimate friend of a large number of the European 
artists, and was sought and highly esteemed by all 
the American painters and sculptors whom he met in 
Europe. He understood them. He sympathized with 
their enthusiasm and- sacrifices ; while a great, cold 
world went by them without a comforting word or a 
smile of recognition. 

Dresden was like a door to his higher art life, and 
its collection of paintings is worthy of such a place. 
There were, besides the Sistine Madonna, the "Ascen- 
sion," by Raphael Mengs, the "Notte," by Correggio, 
and galleries of master-pieces by Titian, Da Vinci, 
Veronese, Del Sarto, Rubens, Vandyck, Lorraine 
and Teniers ; with sculpture in marble, ivory, bronze 
and jewels, from Michael Angelo and his cotempora- 
ries. Beinof the widest and most diversified collection 
in Germany, it was eagerly sought by Bayard, and 
more reluctantly left behind. More grand than the 



i: fismmi 



iiilililillHll 




VTSIT TO PRAGUE. 89 

battle of Napoleon before its gates, and more lasting 
in their effects, were the historic works of art which 
Dresden is so proud to possess. 

From Dresden, Bayard walked to Prague, leaving 
behind him, as he then thought forever, the cheerful, 
hospitable, kind-hearted people, with whose kin he 
afterwards became so intimately and advantageously 
connected. In Prague, he ascended the heights where 
the Bohemian kings and Amazon queens used to re- 
side, heard the solemn mass in one of Europe's most 
solemn Cathedrals, visited the bridge under which the 
Saint Johannes floated with the miraculous stars about 
his corpse, lost himself in the bedlam of Jewish cloth- 
ing-shops, and then, staff in hand, hastened on over 
the monotonous plains, and through the highways 
almost fenced with wretchedly painted shrines, to the 
Paris of the west, Vienna. 

There again were rare treasures of art on which he 
might study, and in study, increase in that dignity and 
expansion of soul which only such contemplation can 
o-ive. He was delighted to hear the composer Strauss, 
and his orchestra, and amusingly describes the queer 
antics of that nervous little musician. He gazed with 
awe at the stained banners of the Crusaders, and, with 
uncoverei head, listened to the grand chants in St. 
Stephen's Cathedral ; but his pathetic mention of his 
visit to the tomb of Beethoven is the most character- 
istic. 

There was a most lovable trait in Bayard's character, 



90 LIFE OF BAYARD TATLOK. 

which became even more prominent in his after years 
of travel, which deserves mention in this connection. 
He never railed npon the dead, nor ridiculed the re- 
ligious belief or acts of devotion of any people, how- 
ever ignorant or heathenish. He often mentioned, 
with emotion, the efforts of the darkened human mind 
to find its Creator and Ruler. He treated with sin- 
cerest respect every act of devotion performed in his 
presence, whether by Protestant, Catholic, or Mahom- 
edan. There was that in his nature, and his early 
Quaker education, that not only kept him in the paths 
of morality and on the side of virtue, but through 
all his writings there runs a thread of ftiith in God, 
which cannot be better expressed than by quoting one 
of his own sweet hynuis. 

" In tlio peace of hearts at rest, 
In tbo child at mother's breast, 
In the lives that now surround na, 
In the deaths that sorely wound ns, 
Though we may not understand, 
Father, we behold Thy hand ! " 

After leaving Vienna, he went, by the way of Enns 
to Lintz, which is situated in one of the most pictur- 
esque landscapes of the Danube. The city is sur- 
rounded by towers unconnected by walls and has a 
very romantic history. Bayard in his letters speaks 
of the rural scenes about Lintz in terms of the highest 
admirati'jn. It was in these Austrian landscapes that 



ARRIVAL AT MUNICH. 91 * 

he composed that poem entitled " The Wayside Dream," 
and in which wc find the following descriptive Ihies : 

" The deep and lordly Diiniibe 
Goes winding fur below ; 
I see the wMte-walled hamlets 
Amid his vineyards glow, 
And sonthward, throngh the ether, shine 
The Styrian hills of snow. 

" O'er many a league of landscape 
Sleeps the warm haze of noon ; 
The wooing winds come freighted 
With messages of June, 
And down among the corn and flowers 
I hear the water's tune. 

" The meadow-lark is singing, 
As if it still were morn ; 
Within the dark pine-forest 
The hunter winds his horn, 
And the cuckoo's shy, complaining note 
Mocks the maidens in the corn." 

From Lintz, over hills and by meadows, among the 
merry farmers and their light-hearted children, they 
walked on, through Salzburg and Hohenlinden, 1l 
Munich, where another magnificent display of paint- 
ings, sculpture, palaces, parks, and historic local- 
ities, rewarded him for his long walk and limited 
supply of food. He had so little money that he 
was compelled to live on twenty cents a day. There 
he found the great works of Thorwaldsen, Cornelius, 



92 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

and Schwanthaler, and copies in marble of almost 
every celebrated piece of antique sculpture. There 
were the gorgeous palaces of kings and dukes, the 
beautifully wrought halls and churches, with the 
spacious avenues and charming parks. No city in the 
world contains such rich decorations, such unique and 
profuse ornamentation, or such harmony of design and 
arrangement, as is shown in the palace halls and public 
edifices of Munich. How a visit to them sweetens 
everything else in after life, and how the memory of 
them ever lightens the burden of care ! What Ameri- 
can could walk those pavements and floors and not 
yearn for the power to give to his own country some- 
thing to match those marvellous structures ! Bayard 
must have felt that impulse in common with others ; 
but, unlike many others, he kept his promise, which 
was to awaken a love in every American heart for art 
in its grand and stable forms ; and many are the 
promptings and rebukes which we, as a people, have 
received from his pen as writer, and from his lips as a 
lecturer. 

From Munich, the route chosen by Bayard lay 
through Augsburg, Ulm, and Wurtemberg, and when 
he entered the latter country, at Esslingen, he said 
the very atmosphere was permeated with poetry. He 
was delighted with the green vales, lofty hills, lovely 
vineyards, waving forests, and feudal ruins. He was 
grateful to the kind people, and was made happy by 
their universal cheerfulness and good-nature. It was 



WURTEMBERG AND SCHILLER. 



93 



the home of Schiller ! There the first nine years of 
the poet's life were spent, and sci^rce a nook is there 
about the interesting old cities which that boy did not 
explore. It was toward Wurtemberg, as his child- 
hood's home, Schiller exhibited the greatest regard; 
alas, it was there, too, in Stuttgart, that the tyrannical 
Duke imprisoned him for publishing his first play. 
There, too, the patriotic Uhland sat in the halls of leg- 
islation, and wrote those poems which fired the hearts 
of his countrymen to a brave defence of fatherland. 

Bayard's happy stay in Esslingen, and his word-pic- 
tures of its attractions, show the progress which he 
had already made in his love for that German poetry, 
of which he was to become so popular an expounder. 
He praises the river Neckar and its flowery banks, he 
lauds the people, he portrays the landscapes in the 
brightest colors which poetry may lend to prose. 
Bright day ! one he never recalled without exclama- 
tions of pleasure ! 

After such interest as he exhibited in the country of 
Schiller, it is no surprise, the next day after leaving 
Esslingen, to find him in Stuttgart, looking u^). into 
the pensive face of Thorwaldsen's colossal statue of 
Schiller. So attracted and entranced was he by 
the interpretation of Schiller, made by the natives, the 
scenery, and the old home, that when beautiful Stutt- 
gart opens its avenues, parks, cathedrals, palaces, and 
o-alleries to him, he forsakes and neglects them all for 
this huge but faithfully wrought counterfeit in stoue of 



94 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

the persecuted singer. To his naturally sentimental 
and sensitive character, the German poet was revealed 
in ideals moxe fascinating than any realities. He 
studied the face of his brother poet, praised his beauty, 
repeated a broken stanza of " William Tell," and left 
the other attractions of Stuttgart unseen. 

Passing the castle of Ludwigsburg, and skirting the 
village of Marbach, the birth-place of Schiller, a village 
then about the size of Kennett now, but obliged to 
push on for fear of starvation, he w^alked to Betigheim, 
and thence the next day to his first German home, 
Heidelberg. 



VISIT TO SWITZERLAND. 95 



CHAPTER XII. 

Starts for Switzerland and Italy. — First View of the Alps. — The 
Falls of the Rhine. — Zurich. — A Poet's Home. — Lake Lucerne, 
— Goethe's Cottage. - Scenes in the Life of William Tell. — 
Ascent of the Alps at St. Gothard. — Descent into Italy. — 
The Cathedral at Milan. — Bayard's Characteristics. — Tramp 
to Genoa. — Visits Leghorn and Pisa. — Lovely Florence. — De- 
lightful Visits. — The Home of Art. 

August 1, 1845, Bayard again started from Frank- 
fort on bis pedestrian wanderings, having made up his 
mind to visit Switzerland, Florence, Venice, Rome, 
and perhaps Athens. On this trip his cousin Frank 
was again his companion. With their knapsacks on 
their shoulders and stalFs in hand they began another 
pilgrimage, confident and strong. With but a small 
supply of money, and with but shadowy probabilities 
of more, they launched out into a world to them un- 
tried and unknown. With excited imaginations and 
the keenest anticipations they rose above every dif- 
ficulty and faced boldly the probabilities of fiitigue and 
want. They made a short stay at Freiburg and entered 
the Black Forest, passing the Titi Lake and the Feld- 
berg peak. Bayard's disposition for ascending moun- 
tains, which inclined him to see the top of everything, led 
him to go up the cragged side of the Feldberg, from 



91) LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

the summit of which he could just make out the white 
crests of the Alps. On the nearer approach to them, 
and when from the last ranges of the hills of the Black 
Forest, they beheld the white Alps in all their inde- 
scribable grandeur looming up at the other side of the 
vast plain, Bayard spoke of the patriotic feelings which 
such a sight must excite in the mind and heart of a 
Swiss returning after a long absence to his native land. 
He thought of his old nurse and her tales of the Alpine 
scenery, and of the knolls and vales of his own home. 
It is no wonder that the Swiss are free and brave and 
strong. The waterfalls, cliffs, and cloud-piercing 
mountains fill the soul with a sense of grandeur and 
glory which tends toward great deeds and fervent 
patriotism. Who can recall the eternal snows, the 
towering shafts of rock, the roaring caverns, and 
sweetest of blue lakes, without the most thrilling emo- 
tions ! If there are any travellers upon whom the 
memory of Switzerland brings no such feelings, they 
are the exceptions. Bayard's nature was such as to 
enjoy to the full, and sometimes with an intensity that 
was almost pain, all those sublime exhibitions of the 
power and majesty of the great Creator. 

The fall of the Rhine near Schaffhausen hardly met 
the expectations of these travellers, who had heard 
their German friends speak in such strong terms of 
its greatness. It is a most beautiful waterfall, and 
when viewed from the platform at the base of the 
cliff beneath the castle, startles the spectator with its 



AT ZURICH. 97 

thundering plunges and foaming whirlpools. To a 
native of the same land with Niagara, the Yosemite^ 
and the Yellowstone, its size is insignificant. But its 
beauty as a picturesque scene, when the high banks, 
the long rapids, the surging pools beneath, and the 
jagged rocks tliat rise through and above the spray 
and rainbows, are included in the panorama, can be 
described only in the strongest language. 

From Schaffhausen they hurried on by the fields of 
the free and happy Swiss farmers, and along highways 
that reminded him of his Pennsylvania home, into the 
city of Zurich. There he carefully noted the charac- 
ter and customs of the people. He was cheered by 
their friendly greetings, he was surprised at their in- 
telligence, he was pleased by the happy faces of the 
children, and he was proud of the apparent influence 
of a republic over its people. He visited the cele- 
brated poet, Freiligrath, at his villa on the shores of 
the lake, where the young American poet and his elder 
German brother had a most social talk of Bryant, 
Longfellow, and Whittier. From Freiligrath's exile 
home, they walked by the "Devil's Bridge" to the 
Abbey of Einsiedeln, where the crowd of pilgrims and 
the sweetest of singers in the church choir made a 
pleasant and charming impression upon Bayard's mind. 
Thence by valleys, and mountains, so broken and 
grand, and by streams so delicately blue that descended 
to the placid Zug, they journeyed to Lake Lucerne. 
There, on the shore, in a charming grotto, upon which 
7 



98 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

the Righi and Pilatus look down, while above and be- 
yond them the white peaks of the loftier Alps shim- 
mer in the sunshine above the clouds, William Tell, 
the father of Swiss liberty, had his home. There, in 
an embowered cottage, that peeped from the leaves like 
a maiden so coy, resided for a long time the poet 
Goethe ; and there, according to his own account, he 
studied the plot for a poem, but which was afterwards 
embodied by his friend Schiller in the drama of "Wil- 
liam Tell." There was the rock on which Tell leaped 
from Gessler's boat ; there grew the linden-tree where 
Tell shot the apple from the head of his son ; there the 
chapel of William Tell, and there the hundreds of in- 
teresting localities connected more or less closely with 
the early tyranny of Austria and the heroic resistance 
of the Swiss patriots. Bayard loved the works of 
Schiller, as, in fact, could hardly be avoided by any one 
who reads them in the original tongue and amid the 
scenes so strikingly described. 

From Burglen, where Tell was born and where he so 
heroically died while attempting to save a child from 
drowning, they marched upward along the banks of the 
Reuss to Amsteg, and thence along the precipices where 
the craggy mountains rose thousands of feet above 
them, and the wild stream surged and raged far, far 
below them. No scene more wild and overwhelm- 
ingly grand than that at the "Devil's Bridge," over 
which they crossed on their way to the summit of St. 
Gothard. Black chasms yawned at their feet ; enor- 



ST. GOTHARD. 99 

moiis shelving rocks huDg threatening overhead. 
Clouds of spray, like steam from huge caldrons, arose 
from numberless pits, wherein the streams boiled and 
hissed in their crevice-like channels. The clear air 
was like wine. The peaks seemed to reach to heaven, 
and gleamed with celestial purity. The charm of the 
scenery lifted the mind and awakened the holiest emo- 
tions, while the balm of health permeated the body, 
and gave it a strength seemingly supernatural. What 
person is there who loves not the dear old peaks of 
Switzerland ! Who has passed the heights of St. Goth- 
ard and not awakened a glow in his body and an im- 
pulse in his soul that strengthen him ever after ! 

But it is not our purpose to portray to the reader 
the scenes, in the description of which Bayard so 
much excelled, and hence, making note only of such 
things as had a marked influence on his life and writ- 
ings, we hastily follow him in his pilgrimage through 
the vale of Ticino, over Lago Maggiore, to the gates of 
Milan, under the clear blue sky of lovely Italy. There 
the most magnificent marble Cathedral in all the world, 
when considered as a triumph of art in reproducing the 
Beautiful, lifted its spires and figures above the roofs 
of churches and palaces. A bewildering forest of 
peaks and towers confuse the student of its outline, 
and innumerable collections of exquisitely wrought 
groups and statues dishearten and confuse the student 
of art. Yet the unity of its proportions, and the 
Bymmotry of its arches and cornices, were recognized 



100 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

by all. Bayard trod its artistic pavement with feel- 
ings of awe and admiration. He gazed long upon its 
aisles and pillars, and crept on tip-toe into the shad- 
ows of its great altar. It is one of the most solemn 
things in life to stand in such a temple of genius. 
The stained windows, with their sacred figures and 
symbols, the sweet reverberations of the sacred music, 
the low chant of the priests, the kneeling forms of 
penitent worshippers, the strength of the workman- 
ship and vastness of its sombre recesses, awaken sen- 
sations that sleep in the open air. The naturally 
vicious and cruel avoid those chancels, and the wise 
and good gain encouragement from the supreme calm 
that reigns therein. Bayard enjoyed his stay in Milan 
and his visits to the Cathedral most heartily, and it 
was an important experience in the development of 
his natural character. How his skill in observation, 
and his interest in everything had increased ! Bright 
and acute by nature, he saw and noted many things 
when he first landed, which others would have passed 
without observing ; but those months of discipline and 
anxious research had developed this characteristic, 
until, as he enters Italy, he notices every shrub, every 
animal, every building, every man, woman and child; 
and at a glance passes them under such close scrutiny 
that he is able, months after, to describe them in all the 
details of form, color, nature, association, habits, and 
occupation. How boundless and fathomless is the un- 
observed about us I How few notice the myriad of 



CLOSE OBSERVATION. 101 

interesting and enlightening objects and incidents that 
come within the range of their vision ! The disposi- 
tion and aptitude for observation is as indispensable 
to the traveller, as it is convenient to one who plods 
the dull routine of home life. Bayard was naturally 
discerning and inclined to investigate. Such will be 
the deliberate conclusion of one who studies his life 
as a whole, although his enemies have sometimes taken 
advantage of his modest suppressions to accuse him of 
blindness. Bayard sees a child in the garments of 
priesthood, and pities him for his solitary life. He 
meets a poor woman and notices the texture of her 
dress, and the scar upon her cheek. He looks at a 
painting of the Cathedral, and observes that a spire is 
wanting. He looks at the towers, and compares those 
creations of art with the more rugged spires of Monte 
Rosa's ice-crags. He laments the ignorance of the 
people whose features advertised their needs. He 
studies and criticises the shape and position of the 
Arch of Peace, and the bronze groups that adorn its 
summit: shops, toy-stands, cabs, soldiers, flowers, 
priests, dukes, houses, fields, schools, coin, clothing, 
atmosphere, and food, — all are noticed and laid away 
for recollection, as without order they attracted hi? 
attention . He discovered more worth relating in Milan 
than some travellers saw in the whole of Europe.* 

* As Bayard says of Oss^o in his poem of Mon-da-Miu: — 

" He could guess 
The knowledge other minds but slowly plucked 
From out the heart of things : to him, as well 
As to his Gods, all things were possible." 



102 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

From Milan the party walked to Genoa, going 
through the battle-fields of Hannibal and the Caesars, 
along highways once the paved roads of the Roman 
Empire, and under the shadows of ancient castles 
whose walls once bristled with the shields of knights 
and spears of yeomen. It was a glorious, though 
tedious journey, and by thus travelling in the manner 
of pilgrims they met the inhabitants at their usual occu- 
pations, and learned much of the customs and feelings 
of the common people. Such information comes not 
through the windows of railroad carriages, nor enters 
by the portals of grand hotels. 

Having visited the ducal palaces, cathedrals, and 
parks of Genoa, he went by boat to Leghorn, and 
thence to Pisa. There he saw, in the Cathedral, the 
swinging chandelier which led Galileo to investigate 
the laws of gravitation, and satisfied his curiosity 
by ascending the Leaning Tower, and left the city with 
those melodies of unearthly sweetness, which the 
echoes of the Baptistry give forth, still ringing in his 
ears. After riding all night in a rickety cart, and suf- 
fering horribly from the terrible storm and jolting 
conveyance, he entered the sacred precincts of that 
hallowed city, so beautiful, so dear to the heart of the 
poet and painter, — Florence. 

In his jDoem, "The Picture of St. John," Bayard 
thus speaks of that enchanted locality : — 

" Ah, lovely Florence ! never city wore 
So shining robes as I on thee bestowed : 



IN FLORENCE. 103 

For all the rapture of my being flowed 
Around tliy beauty, filliug, flooding o'er 
The banks of Arno and tbe circling bills, 
With light no wind of sunset ever spills 
From out its saffron seas ! Once, and no more, 
Life's voyage touches the enchanted shore." 

During his stay in Florence, Bayard wrote a poem 
which so clearly expressed his affection for the maiden 
in Kennett, whom he afterwards married, that many 
have supposed the fictitious title, by which he addressed 
her, to be her real name. In that poem he thus re- 
ferred to Florence : — 

" Dear Lillian, all I wished is won ! 
I sit beneath Italia's sun. 
Where olive orchards gleam and quiver 
Along the banks of Arno's river. 

Rich is the soil with fancy's gold ; 
The stirring memories of old 
Rise thronging in my haunted vision, 
And wake my spirit's young ambition." 

That Italian paradise, situated in the beautiful vale 
of that most charming river, is perhaps the loveliest 
spot in all that land. Being the home of such artists 
as Michael Angelo and Kaphael, the abode of such 
poets as Dante, and of such scientific men as Galileo, 
it possessed an intense interest because of its associa- 
tion with them. Being also the seat of the De Medici, 
of Machiavelli, of Pitti, and the resort of the greatest 
American poets and sculptors, its themes for verse and 
prose are almost numberless. There Bayard made a 



104 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

stay of several months. He devoted himself to the 
study of the Italian language, in which he soon be- 
came proficient, and visited every castle, monastery, 
amphitheatre, and mountain in the suburbs, and care- 
fully scrutinized the tombs of Sante Croce, the inlaid 
work of the Duomo, and those marvels of art in the 
Pitti and Uffizi galleries. He ever after mentioned 
his first stay in Florence as a season of the most in- 
tense delight, and knowing how vast is the field for 
study and recreation, and his peculiar susceptibility to 
all the lights and shades of art, we see how full was 
his heart of the purest and most satisfactory intellectual 
joy. There he saw Raphael's "St. John in the Desert," 
and it is probable that the painting prompted him to 
write the poem entitled "The Picture of St. John," 
the scene of which is laid partly in Florence, and is 
one of his most valued literary productions. There 
he saw the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael, the com- 
panion piece of the Madonna he saw and so much 
admired in Dresden. There he saw Titian's Goddess, 
so radiant with feminine beauty, a' id there Michael 
Angelo's first attempt at sculpture ; — ao many treasures 
of art are there, and so many sacn .4 places renowned 
in history, that the great city gainr its living from the 
visitors and students that fill its h tels, and crowd its 
churches and museums. Bayard actually loved Flor- 
ence, and returned to it after war is vith that irresist- 
ible yearning which a young r^'in f,3ls for the home 
of his lover. 



FROM FLORENCE TO ROME. 105 

There remains in all the world but one other place 
for the artist after he has seen and appreciated Flor- 
ence. His love for the exquisitely sweet and beautiful 
is satisfied, — all the tender and delicate links between 
art and nature can there be seen nnd felt. An exhi- 
bition of the mighty, grand, colossal side of art 
remains ; and to the lover of such exhibitions, and to 
the romance-seeker who, like Bayard, desires to walk 
the dusty halls, peopled with the ghosts of half-for- 
gotten ao^es, Rome still waits. 



106 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER Xm. 

Visit to Rome. — Attractions of its Ruins. — Bayard's Persistent 
Searches. — His Limited Means. — Sights and Experiences. — 
Journey to Marseilles. — Walks to Lyons. — Desperate Circum- 
stances. — Stay in Paris. — Employment of his Time. — De- 
parture for London. — Failure to obtain Money or Work. — 
Seeks a Friend. — Obtains Help from a Stranger. — Voyage to 
New York. — Arrival Home. 

Who has entered the aged city of Rome and not felt 
the power of its thrilling associations? How the 
doors of history swing open before the traveller, and 
how sublime the panorama which unfolds to his view ! 
How swiftly pass the scenes of pomp and the parades 
of heroes ! It cannot be described. It must be felt 
to be understood. It requires no very active imag- 
ination to see again the strong walls, the towers, the 
gates, the majestic temples, and the superb Capitol 
rising over all. To be able to walk its paved 
streets, and wend about its Corinthian porches, and 
through its marvellous arches ; to rush with the crowds 
of Romans to a seat in the Coliseum ; to march in 
the triumphal processions, and to listen to the echo of 
Cicero's voice among the pillars of the Forum, is no 
very difficult dream, when the same buildings which 
saw and heard those things are yet before you. One 



AT ROME. • 107 

can stand in the shadows of ancient ruins, when the 
moon gives light enough to see the outline, but not 
sufficient to show the scars which the ages have given 
them, and witness again the gatherings of the Roman 
people, and make out the forms of Cincinnatus, of 
Scipio, of Marius, of Caesar, of Cicero, of Augustus, 
or of Constantine, as their lumbering chariots jolt 
over the pavements and around the palace walls. The 
Tiber, which rolls on its ceaseless course, and which 
saw the faces of Livy, Horace, and Virgil, moves by 
the Tarpeian Rock, and the Campus Martins, with the 
same eddying playfulness as it exhibited then. New 
glories gild the clouds, and new temples adorn the 
adjacent plains. Jupiter gives way to Jehovah, priests 
of Janus and Venus stand aside for monks and friars 
to fill their office. The Coliseum crumbles, as St. 
Paul's lifts its grand fagades. Capitolinus falls and 
St. Peter's fills the bow of heaven. Marvels of an- 
cient art grow dusty with the ages, while new forms, 
so divinely conceived, so incomparably wrought, and 
so immaculate in modesty and matchless in color, 
spring into being at the call of the later civilization. 
All is interesting, exciting, glorious ! One walks the 
streets in dreams, lulled by the musical cadences of 
the rippling native language. Words cannot convey 
the feelings awakened by that new sense, which dis- 
cerns and interprets the ancient and modern associa- 
tions of Rome. The traveller feels as if he were a com- 
panion of the great and powerful, of the refined and 



108 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

good, who have walked those streets before him, and 
ever after the words they spoke, and the books they 
wrote, have a fresh and unabating interest. 

So Bayard saw the ancient city, although he has 
described it somewhat differently. Eome was to 
Florence what the Apollo is to the Venus de Medici, 
each enhancing the beauty of the other, and losing 
nothing by comparison. It was near the first of Jan- 
uary, 184G, when the subject of these sketches entered 
Rome and took up his abode in a lowly tavern oppo- 
site the front of the Pantheon. In a most humble, 
almost beggarly way, he obtained his food at the 
cheapest places, and walked among those old ruins in 
the most unobtrusive manner. He was too poor, and 
earned too little as a newspaper ^correspondent, to 
spend aught on the luxuries of Rome. Hence all his 
his time and attention were on that which pleased the 
eye and satisfied the mind, rather than upon those 
things which gratify the appetite or inflate the pride. 
He walked to the Coliseum by moonlight, and heeded 
not fatigue. For within its cragged circuit he saw 
again the excited hosts, the gay ladies about the im- 
perial throne, the writhing Christian, and the lions 
with bloody jaws. Or he saw the fiercer human beings 
cnsfasred in the o^ladiatorial combat, saw the flash of 
shields and swords, heard the groan of the dying as it 
was drowned by the rising shouts for the victor. 
He searched the hidden recesses of the baths, palaces, 
arches, prisons, and churches, which remain as remind- 



VISITS IN ROME. 109 

ers of the old city ; he marched far out on the Appian 
Way and contemplated its tombs and mysterious piles 
in laborious detail ; he sketched the sph*als of Trajan's 
Column, and drew a plan of the ancient Capitol. In 
awe-stricken silence he walked beneath the dome of 
mighty St. Peter's, and marvelled in worshipful mood 
before those exquisite mosaics. He lingered long and 
lovingly in the great labyrinth of the Vatican, wept at 
the sight of some of those great paintings, and bowed 
with respect to the greatest productions of the greatest 
sculptors. Few will give credit to the glowing pic- 
tures which he draws of the arts in Rome, nor believe 
the strong assertions we herein make, who have not 
been there and experienced the same sensations. 

He visited in pious respect the tombs of Tasso, 
Keats, and Shelley, and found his way into the studios 
of the modern artists. He took short trips into the 
country, and once stopped for the night under the 
shadows of the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli. Beyond 
Rome he could not go. For once, Dame Fortune 
turned her back upon him. If he would see Naples, 
Pompeii, and Samos, he must have money. Money 
he could not get. Grievously disappointed, yet thank- 
ful for what he had seen, he most devoutly thanks God, 
and turns northward. 

At Civita Vecchia to which place he, as usual, 
walked, he embarked, third class, on a steamboat for 
Marseilles. The beds were rough planks, the food was 
drenched like himself, and fleas infested every stitch of 



110 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

covering. It stormed, and Bayard might have perished 
with exposure to the bad weather, had not a sailor 
taken compassion on him and his companion, and lent 
them some clothing. That kindness he ever remem- 
bered, and it may have been in his mind when, after 
meeting many sailors, he wrote of them : — 

" TJiey do not act with a studied grace, 
They do uot speak in delicate phrase, 
But the candor of heaven is on their face, 
And the freedom of ocean in all their ways. 

They cannot fathom the subtle cheats, 
The lying arts that the landsmen learn : 
Each looks in the eyes of the man he meets, 
And whoso trusts him, he trusts in turn. 

But whether they die on sea or shore, 

And lie under water, or sand, or sod, 

Christ give them the rest that he keeps in store, 

And anchor their souls in the harbor of God ! " 

He arrived at Marseilles with but five dollars for 
the expense of a journey of five hundred miles on foot. 
Dark outlook, indeed, on entering for the first time a 
country with whose language he was unacquainted. 
Through rain and mud, sunshine and darkness, he 
moved on, courageous as ever, and enjoying with the 
same zest his glimpses of ancient cathedrals and re- 
nowned localities. At Lyons he received a small 
amount of money by mail, and at a time when death by 
starvation seemed but a few hours removed. The 



ill 

1 



lllllll™^^^ 





ENTERS PARIS. Ill 

story of his mishaps by land and by water, on his way 
from Lyons to Paris is a very exciting narration, as 
he relates them in his " Views Afoot," and yet shows 
the best side of a most terrible experience. But Paris 
was reached at last, and in the first week of February, 
1846, they found a lodging place in the Kue de la 
Harpe, at the rate of two dollars and eighty cents a 
month. He lived on twenty cents a day, and in place 
of a teacher of French, subscribed at a circulating 
library and picked out the words and phrases by down- 
right hard study in his tireless and damp attic. For 
five weeks he studied and rambled and endured priva- 
tion, learning Paris by heart and finding himself made 
free and happy by the atmosphere of gayety which per- 
vades everything there. His favorite resort was the 
Place de la Concorde, which is an open space at one 
side of the palace of the Tuileries, and at the foot of 
that magnificent embowered avenue called the Champs 
Elys^es. There were then, as now, the enchanting 
groves, with the gardens, concert bowers, and shy 
booths. There was the obelisk from Luxor, which 
called Bayard's attention to Egypt and created a strong 
desire to see that ancient land of the Nile. There were 
the solid walls of the Tuileries upon one side, the river 
Seine upon another, while the twin palaces, with the 
distant front of the Madeleine Church showing between 
them, shut out the populous city on the other. But 
the pavements, flowers, fountains, bronze figures, ob- 
elisk and palaces were the least of the attractions 



112 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYIXJB. 

which called this persevering young student to that 
celebrated square. It was there that many of the most 
important acts in the history of France were performed. 
It was there that kings were made, and there they 
were beheaded. It was there that priests had preached , 
and there that they were murdered. It was there that 
in the crimson and lurid days of '94, the Red Revo- 
lutionists each day filled the baskets at the foot of 
the jruillotine with the heads of twoscore and often 
threescore citizens. Who would surmise that in a 
city so gay, so cheerful, so imbued w^ith the very spirit 
of pleasure and childlike life, such hideous deeds of 
blood and destruction could be performed ! Qiiick- 
•tempered, excitable people, going with the flash of a 
thought from one extreme to the other. No place in 
all Paris better exhibits the character of the nation, 
than the Place de la Concorde. There Bayard often 
lingered and pondered, seeing clearly through the film 
of gay attire, garlands of roses, delightful wines, and 
gorgeous carriages, the dangerous yet often heroic 
elements, which have so often thrown off the crust of 
fiishion and politeness, and flooded the beautiful city 
with seething torrents from the deepest hell. 

He sought out the masterpieces of art in the galleries, 
cathedrals, and parks, and dwelt long and caressingly 
upon their entrancing forms, having now passed 
through a school that left him a competent critic. He 
gazed after the carriage where Louis Philippe rode in 
state, and wondered if such a monarchy could endure, 



PARIS TO LONDON. 113 

and with a powerful yearning fumbled the unintelligi- 
ble leaves of Victor Hugo, Beranger, and Lamartiue — 
not, however, to be long unintelligible. 

There, again, he was in financial distress, and was 
saved from great sufiering by the unexpected kindness 
of a merchant, who, like Mr. Chandler and Mr. Patter- 
son at the beghming of his career, loaned him money, 
although Bayard was a stranger and could give no 
security. 

From Paris via Versailles and Rouen, he walked to 
Dieppe, and, after crossing the Channel, travelled by 
third-class car to London, where he arrived with but 
thirty cents in French money. With no money to pay 
his lodging, with a letter from home in the post-ofiice, 
on which he could not pay the postage, he made desper- 
ate attempts to obtain employment as a printer. But the 
" Trade Unions " were so omnipotent, that no strang- 
er without a certificate could be set at w^ork without a 
" strike." At last, when long without his usual meals, and 
sure of being refused a lodging, he applied to Mr. Put- 
nam, who was conducting the London agency of the Amer- 
ican publishing firm, who loaned him five dollars, and 
he could again eat and sleep. Several weeks of waiting 
intervened, in which Mr. Putnam kindly kept Bayaid 
in employment, at a salary sufficient to pay his board, 
before the monej came from America to take them 
home. Even then the captain of the vessel on which 
he returned with his two friends whc started with him 
nearly two years before, was '.y-'^pelled to take a 
6 



114 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

promise for a part of the fare. Captain Morgan, who 
commanded the vessel, was one of the noblest men that 
ever paced a deck, and so popular did he become, that 
his biography was published thirty years after this 
passage, in an illustrated number of "Scribner's Maga- 
zine." Their voyage was a fair one , their landing in New 
York a haj^py one ; but no pen except his own can de- 
scribe the joy of seeing again his own country, and of 
walkins: at evenino^ into the door of that home which 
he left two years before as a boi/, and to which he then 
returned a man. 



EDITS A NEWSPAPER. 115 



CHAPTER XIY 

Edits a Country Newspaper. — The " Phceuixvillo Pioneer." — The 
Discouragements. — The Suspension. — Publishes " Views 
Afoot." — Introduction to Literary Men. — Contributes to the 
" Literary World." — Becomes an Editor of the New York " Trib- 
une." — The Gold Excitement of 1849. — Resolves to visit the 
Eldorado. — Arrival in California. 

Bayard Taylor's gifts were not such as would con- 
tribute toward the success of a country newspaper — 
so delicate, refined, poetical, and classical, we wonder 
that he should ever have undertaken so uncongenial a 
work. The best things which he could write would be 
dull as lead to the majority of his readers. The more 
literary merit his editorials and poems contained, the 
less likely were they to receive the praise of his sub- 
scribers. Yet his disposition to work was so inherent 
in every nerve, that he had not been at home one week 
from his tour of Europe before he was searching for a 
place for editorial work or correspondence. Mr. Fred- 
erick Foster, who was an old acquaintance and who also 
had been in the office of the West Chester " Village 
Record," suggested the establishment of a weekly news- 
paper. As they looked for an opening for such an enter- 
prise, they hit upon the town of Phoenixville, Pa., as the 
most advantageous locality. Phcenixville was then a 



116 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

prosperous village, containing about two thousand in- 
habitants, twenty-seven miles from Philadelphia and 
thirty-one miles from Reading. There were rolling- 
mills, furnaces, and a variety of manufactories in the 
town, and the people constituted an enterprising and 
unusually vigorous community. There Mr. Taylor and 
Mr. Foster began the publication of the "Pioneer," 
nnd with high hopes and an alarming confidence, 
waited neither for capital nor subscribers. 

Mr. Taylor has often related to his friends some 
most amusing anecdotes connected with his life as a 
country editor. One subscriber wanted a glossary, 
another wished to see the local gossip about John 
Henry Smith's surprise party, instead of the dull 
columns of literary reviews. One suggested that two 
editors would kill any paper, while another ventured 
to assert that he himself would edit the paper for them 
at three hundred dollars a year and " find shears." 

It was a difficult task. To edit the New York " Her- 
ald" would have been far easier and better suited to Mr. 
Taylor's genius. The people of Phoenixville, how- 
ever, began to appreciate their privileges after the 
lack of support compelled the young journalists to close 
their office and suspend the publication of the paper ; 
and financial aid to re-establish the "Pioneer" was 
generously ofiered. But one year in such an unappre- 
ciated labor was enough for Mr. Taylor, and he left 
Phcenixville, according to his own account, considerably 
wiser and poorer thaa he was when he entered it. IX 



PUBLISHES A BOOK. 117 

any of our readers has attempted to start a literary 
paper in the country, and passed through the peii:)lex- 
ities of financial management and rude discouragements, 
he will need no words to i)rompt his most hearty sym- 
pathy with the work, and the suspension of Mr. Tay- 
lor's undertaking. To make successful a publication 
of that character in a scattered and small community, 
requires a greater diversity of talent, greater manual 
labor, and a closer study of all-various human nature, 
than it does to conduct the largest establishments in 
the limitless field of a great city. Mr. Taylor's expe- 
rience simply added another illustration of the univer- 
sal rule. His best articles were unappreciated or be- 
lieved to be borrowed, and everything hindered the 
pursuit of that conscientious literary aspiration which 
feels keenly the failings and improprieties of superficial 
work. 

It was in this year that Mr. Taylor prepared, and 
Mr. Putnam published, his surprisingly attractive 
volume, entitled "Views Afoot." With such Quaker- 
like simplicity was it written, and such a noble 
spirit of poetry prevaded the descriptions of scenery 
men, and art, that it leaped into popular favor on the 
prestige of its advance sheets. Its success was a 
forcible example of the winning power of simple 
truth. Its interest will never abate, because he did 
not assume the pompous airs of an infallible critic, but 
rather chose to pretend to nothing but describe what 
he saw as it appeared to him. 



118 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

The success of that book introduced him at once 
into the literary circles of New York, where, with the 
friendship of Mr. Willis, Mr. Parke Godwin, Mr. 
Horace Greeley, Mr. William Cullen Bryant, and 
many others, well known as men of the highest cult- 
ure, he received a most cordial welcome. He was 
at once secured by the management of the " Literary 
World," a periodical issued weekly in New York, and 
which, from 1847 to 1853, held the highest place in 
literary criticism and classical composition gained by 
any American magazine or paper of that period. 

When he sought employment on the New York 
"Tribune," in 1848, a place was readily found for him, 
and he began, by the contribution of small articles, 
his long and honorable career as one of the editors 
of that influential journal. 

In the spring of 1849, Mr. Greeley suggested to 
Mr. Taylor the importance of having some trustworthy 
information from the gold regions of California, about 
which there was then so much excitement. The peo- 
ple read, with the greatest avidity, every scrap of news 
or gossip from the gold-fields, and thousands were on 
their way by steam and by overland mule-trains to 
seek their fortunes in that Eldorado. At no period 
of our nation's history, not excepting the agitation at 
the beginning of great wars, have the people of this 
country exhibited such uncontrollable excitement as 
they displayed at that time. 

The rich sold their property to the first bidder, and 



X GOLD FEVEE. 119 

took the first conveyance ; while the poor started on 
foot, with nothing to preserve them from the starvation 
which followed in the desert. For a time it appeared 
as if New England and the Middle States would be 
left without sufficient male population to carry on the 
routine of official duty. 

In the height of that feverish exodus Mr. Taylor 
decided to fall in with the tide, and drifting with the 
current, tell the readers of the " Tribune " what he saw 
and heard. Hence, in June, he took passage on a 
crowded steamer for Panama, and after a dreadful 
experience in crossing the Isthmus, steamed up the 
Pacific Coast and entered the Golden Gate. 



120 LIFE OF BAYARr TAYLOH. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Entrauce to California. — Tlie Camp at Sau Francisco in 1849.— 
Description of the People. — Gold-Hunters. — Speculations. — 
Prices of Mercliandise. — Visit to tlie Diggings. — Adventurea 
on the Route. — The First Election. — The Constitutional Con- 
vention. — San Francisco after Two Months' Absence. — Poetical 
Descriptions. — Departure for Mexico. — Arrival at Mazatlan. 
■ — Overland to the Capital. — Adventure with Robbers. — Re- 
turn to New York. 

The circumstances under which Mr. Taylor entered 
California, were in striking contrast with those which 
surrounded him when he made his first attempt to see 
the world. For, when he started for his European 
tour, and throughout the whole period of his stay there, 
he was hindered and annoyed by the lack of money, 
and by the lack of acquaintances. Then, he was 
dependent wholly upon his own earnings and economy 
for every privilege he enjoyed. He had nothing 
substantial behind him, and nothing certain before 
him. But in California he moves among the people 
with the prestige and capital of a powerful journal 
behind him, and before him the certainty of ample 
remuneration for all his trials. He is no longer the 
unknown, uncared-for stripling, whose adventures are 
regarded as visionary, and whose company was an 



SAN t^RANClSCO. 121 

intrusion. He was the welcomed guest of naval offi- 
cers, of army officers, and invited to the home of 
the Military Governor, and to the headquarters of 
Gen. John C. Fremont. 

When he entered San Francisco, that place was 
only a miners' camp, composed of tents, barracks, 
piles of merchandise, and tethered mules. How 
utterly incomprehensible it seems now to the visitor 
to that great metropolis, when he reads that, as late 
as 1849, there were only huts and tents where now 
stand the palatial business blocks, gorgeous hotels, 
and miles of residences made of brick and stone ! It 
was an interesting time to visit the Pacific shore, and 
most interestingly did Mr. Taylor describe it in his 
letters, and in his book entitled "Eldorado." The great 
camp of San Francisco was but a few weeks old when 
he arrived there ; but, in its boiling humanity, Mr. 
Taylor noticed Malays, Chinamen, Mexicans, Ger- 
mans, Englishmen, Yankees, Indians, Japanese, 
Chilians, Hawaiians, and Kanakas, rushing, shouting, 
gesticulating, like madmen. G;)ld ! Gold ! Gold ! 
Everything, anything for gold ! Though hundreds 
lay in the swamps of Panama, dead or dying with 
the cholera ; although the bleaching bones of many 
enthusiasts gleamed in the sun on the great American 
aesert ; although thousands had perished in the 
thickets, snows, and floods of the Sierra Nevada, 
their eyes never to be gratified with the sight of gold- 
dust; yet the increasing multitude followed faster, 



122 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

and more recklessly in their footsteps. Into such a 
mass of half-insane humanity, did Mr. Taylor thrust 
himself, that the world, as well as himself, might 
profit thereby. Great names were given to the 
smallest things, and prices larger than the names 
The Parker House was a board shanty with lodg 
ing-rooms at twenty-five dollars a week, and wa^ 
not more than seventy feet square, but rented to the 
landlord for one hundred and ten thousand dollars a 
year. Newspapers sold for a dollar each, and nearly 
every class of merchandise from the Eastern State? 
brought a profit of several thousand per cent. The 
wages of a common laborer were from fifteen dollars to 
twenty dollars a day, while real estate went up so fast 
in price, that few dared to sell, lest the next day 
should show that they had lost a fortune. One man, 
who died insolvent, but having, in his name a small 
tract of land, left after all a million of dollars to hia 
heirs, so much did the lands increase in value before 
the estate was settled. 

Fortunes were made in a single day. If a man 
arrived there with anything to sell, he could put hia 
own price upon it, and dispose of it to the first 
comer. One man, whose store was a log-cabin with 
a canvas roof, made five hundred thousand dollars in 
eight months. Gambling was carried on in an equally 
magnificent scale. Greater bets than Baden-Baden or 
Monaco ever saw, were common-place there. Millions 
of dollars changed hands every day. Gold was so 



THE DIGGINGS. 123 

plentiful, that boys made immense i^rofits, gathering, 
out of the dust in the streets, the nuggets and fine 
gold which had been carelessly allowed to drop from 
the miners' bags or pockets. 

From that strangest of all strange medleys, Mr. 
Taylor travelled, mule-back, through a wild and dan- 
gerous region, to Stockton, and thence to the produc- 
tive "diggings" on Mokelumne River. There he 
saw the miners hard at work gathering the gold in 
the most primitive manner. The sands found in the 
dry bed of the river were mixed with gold, while in 
the crevices and little holes in the rocks, pieces of 
gold, varying from the size of a five-cent piece to that 
of a hen's egg, were frequently found. Gold from 
the sand was gathered by shaking a bowlful of it 
until the heaviest particles fell through to the bottom ; 
and by washing away the finer particles of dirt, and 
picking out the stones with the fingers. Nearly every 
miner found some gold; but those who made the 
immense fortunes were quite rare. For many of such 
as were in luck, and who found great sums, were so 
sure of finding more, that they squandered what they 
had discovered, in a manner most unfortunate for 
them, but very fortunate for those who had found 
nothing. All the details, experiences, and adventures 
of these followers of Mammon were exhibited to Mr. 
Taylor, and the most tempting offers made to him to 
dig for himself. But, true to his employers, he 
turned from mines " with millions in them," and wrote 



124 LIFE or BAYAKD TATLOR. 

letters for the "Tribune." Over jagged mountains, 
through thickets of thorns, through muddy rivers, 
over desert plains, and along routes, dangerous alike 
from man and beast, he fearlessly pursued his journey 
of observation, exhibiting many of those character- 
istics which have distinguished H. M. Stanley, that 
other great correspondent. Sights he saw that curdled 
the blood; men he met, pale, haggard, and dying; 
bones he saw of lost and starved miners ; and the 
extremes of misery and joy, wealth and poverty, 
generosity and meanness, faith in God, and worship 
of the devil, which must have bewildered him. 

The fact that he had money and social influence did 
not protect him from the hardships common to all trav- 
ellers who visited the gold mines of California at that 
early period. Many nights he slept in the open air, 
havinof his sinijle blanket and the cold earth for a bed. 
Often he made his couch on a table or the floor in some 
rude and dirty cabin. Sometimes he was lost in the 
woods or among the mountains, and frequently sufiered 
loner for food and water. He was determined to see 
the land and its freight of human life in its most prac- 
tical form, although by so doing he often risked th(- 
loss of comfort, of property, and occasionally of his 
life. 

One of the most interesting chapters of history to be 
found in any work connected with life in the United 
States, is to be found in his simple but graphic accoimt 
of the first election in California. The rough, ^'.sin- 



BIRTH OP A STATE. 125 

tegrated, and shifting communities of that new land 
had for a year and a half depended for law and order 
upon the innate respect for the rights of others to be 
found in the hearts of a majority of civilized men. 
Beyond this there were organized in some of the min- 
ing towns a vigilance committee, and in a few others a 
judge with almost supreme power was elected hy a 
vote of the people. These officials administered jus- 
tice by common consent, having no commission or au- 
thority from the National Government. The enormous 
crowds of immigrants which filled towns and cities in 
a single month made the necessity for some form of 
State or Territorial government apparent to the least 
thoughtful. So a few of the more enterprising indi- 
viduals, advised and assisted by the military authorities, 
undertook to bring order out of chaos by calling upon 
the people to elect delegates to a Constitutional Conven- 
tion. The readiness and systematic manner in which 
the people of that whole region responded to the call, 
was one of the most remarkable as well as one of the 
most instructive popular movements to be found in 
the annals of freedom. The meeting of that Constitu- 
tional Convention at Monterey ; the rude accommoda- 
tions, the ability of the body, the harmony of their do- 
liberations, and the wisdom of their regulations and 
provisions, was the subjo3t of many most enthusiastic 
epistles from the pen of Mr. Taylor. In his celebrated 
book, now so much prized by the people of California, 
aud by students of American history, he gives manj 



126 LIFE OF BArABD TAYLOR. 

little details and incidents which are left out of other 
books and so often overlooked by authors and corre- 
spondents, but which are of inestimable importance in 
gaining an accurate knowledge of the inside social and 
political beginnings of that powerful State. He de- 
scribed the appearance of the building in which the 
Convention met, gives sketches of the prominent actors 
in the assembly, and, as if foreseeing how posterity 
would like to preserve the memory of that great day, 
he gives the complexion, color of the hair, stature, and 
dress of the noted men who held seats. It is as excit- 
ing as one of Scott's novels to read of the emotion, 
the tears, among those legislators when the new State 
was born, and when the "thirty-first" gun was fired 
from the fort to announce the completion of the great 
event. Thus, from the consent of the governed in its 
most literal sense, the officers of the State of California 
derived their just powers. And without discord, re- 
bellious or seditious conspiracies, a new government 
took its place among the empires of the world. The 
description of that event in his simple, straightforward 
way was one of Mr. Taylor's best deeds. 

Yet every incident and scene had its poetic side to 
him, and, while that phase of his nature did not lead 
him to exaggeration in prose, it often led him to break 
into independent poetic eflfusions. He appears to 
have long looked upon the Pacific coast as a field of 
poetry and song, for, before he had any idea of visit- 
ing the country, he wrote several poems, and located 



POETRY OF TRAVEL. 127 

them there. "The Fight of Paso del Mar" was one 
of those early poems, and the scene was the clifl* at 
the entrance to the harbor at Santa Barbara. 

" Gusty and raw was the moruiug, 
A fog hung over the seas, 
And its gray skii'ts, rolling inlaud, 
Were torn by the mountain trees ; 
No sound was heard but the dashing 
Of waves on the sandy bar, 
When Pablo of San Diego 
Rode down to the Paso del Mar. 

The pescaddr, out in his shallop, 

Gathering his harvest so wide, 

Sees the dim bulk of the headland 

Loom over the waste of the tide ; 

He sees, like a white thread, the pathway 

Wind round on the terrible wall, 

Where the faint, moving speck of the rider 

Seems hovering close to its fall." 

Most sweetly sang he of the climate, and the pro- 
lific gifts of nature in California, and one verse of his 
" Manuela " contains a very vivid and accm-ate picture 
of some of California, as seen by many travellers. 

"All the air is full of music, for the winter rains are' o'er, 
And the noisy magpies chatter from the budding sycamore ; 
Blithely frisk unnumbered squirrels, over all the grassy slope ; 
Where the airy summits brighten, nimbly leaps the antelope." 

In a prophetic strain, which has been so often 
quoted in that land where 

" The seaward winds are wailing thi-ough Santa Barbara's pines, 
And like a sheatless sabre, the far Pacific shines," 



128 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

he foretold, in " The Pine Forest of Monterey," what 
has already happened in that magic land of sunshine, 
gold, and miraculous progress. 

" Stately Pines, 
But few more years around the promontory 
Your chant will meet the thunders of the sea. 
No more, a barrier to the encroaching -sand 
Against the surf ye '11 stretch defiant arm, 
Though with its onset and besieging shock 
Your firm knees tremble. Never more the wind 
Shall pijie shrill music through your mossy beards, 
Nor sunset's yellow blaze athwart your heads 
Crown all the hills with gold. Your race is past : 
The mystic cycle, whose unnoted birth 
Coeval was with yours, has run its sands, 
And other footsteps from these changing shores 
Frighten its haunting Spirit. Men will come 
To vex your quiet with the din of toil ; 
The smoky volumes of the forge will stain 
This pure, sweet air ; loud keels will ride the sea, 
Dashing its glittering sapphire into foam ; 
Through all her green caiiadas Spring will seek 
Her lavish blooms in vain, and clasping ye, 
O, mournful Pines, within her glowing arms. 
Will weep soft rains to find ye fallen low." 

He portrayed • his California experiences in rhyme, 
when he sang of "The Summer Camp," and we quote 
a few lines of it, so appropriate to his departure from 
6 an Francisco. 

" No more of travel, where the flaming sword 
Of the great sun divides the heavens ; no more 
Of climbiufi; o^er Jutty steeps that swlju 



WONDERFUL CHANGES. 129 

In driving sea-mists, where the stunted tree 
Slants inland, mimicking the stress of winds 
When wind is none ; of plain and steaming marsh, 
Where the dry bulrush crackles in the heat j 
Of camps by starlight in the columned vault 
Of sycamores, and the red, dancing fires 
That build a leafy arch, efface and build, 
And sink at last, to let the stars peep through ; 
Of canons grown with pine, and folded deep 
In golden mountain-sides ; of airy sweeps 
Of mighty landscape, lying all alone 
Like some deserted world." 

He mentioned the deep impression of ceaseless 
progress which the change of a few weeks had made 
in the growth of San Francisco. When he re-entered 
it, after his short stay in the mountains, he could not 
recognize the streets, while the inhabitants and their 
manners had undergone a change still more astonish- 
hig. Where there were tents a few days before, now 
were large buildings of wood, while the log-cabins and 
Chinese houses had, in many places, given place to 
structures of brick and stone. Wharves had been 
built, streets regularly laid out, banks opened, whole- 
sale stores established, lines of steamers running to 
the various ports along the coast, and up the rivers ; 
while the rude, dirty, careless, rushing multitude 
had assumed a cleanliness and a gravity, unequal ol 
course to that of an Eastern city, but astonishingly in 
advance of the previous wildness. Law offices, brokers' 
boards, smelting establishments, barber-shops, hotels, 
bakeries, laundries, and news-stands had all been estab- 
9 



130 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

lished ill a confusingly short space of time. The place 
he found as a frontier camp, he found four months later 
a swarming yet civilized city, with all the officials, and 
some of the red tape which characterize older corpora- 
tions. But San Francisco was not alone in its 
growth; for Sacramento, San Jos6, Monterey, and 
many other towns and cities, had been as nothing, less 
than a year before. At the time he left San Fran- 
cisco, they were populous cities and villages, teeming 
with a resistless, sleepless activity. To accurately 
record such a change, to give an anxious public cor- 
rect information regarding that wonderland, and the 
fortune of their friends, and to bear a share in the 
work of establishing such a State, was the task of 
Mr. Taylor, and most creditably did he perform his 
part. 

On leaving California, about the first of January, 
1850, he decided to go down the coast to Mazatlan 
and thence overland through Mexico. He came to that 
conclusion after long consultations with his friends, 
none of whom could or dared accompany him, while 
all told him of robbers, deserts, impassable streams, 
and dangerous wild beasts which awaited all travellers 
in that benighted and trackless country. Mr. Taylor 
^ould have enjoyed some thrilling adventures ; and 
the fears of his advisers only made him more decided 
in his determination to go. So, alone, and with but 
slight knowledge of the Spanish language, he disem- 
barked at Mazatlan on the Mexican coast, near the 



AMONG THIEVES. 131 

mouth of the Gulf of California, and with a pair oi 
pistols and a dwarfed mule, started into the unknown 
wilds of that tropical land. 

His hardships were many, and his fatigue at times 
almost unbearable; but his love for things new and 
strange, for the unexplored and unknown, kept him 
moving perseveringly on through the thickets and ra- 
vines of upper Mexico. By great skill and consider- 
able assurance he managed to keep in the good graces 
of the people he met, and for several days, in the forests 
and in the villages, he met with very kind and hospita- 
ble treatment. 

On one occasion, however, he fell among thieves. 
Before he arrived at the city of Mexico, and while still 
in the wilderness of the interior of the Mexican high- 
lands, he was suddenly attacked by three Mexican rob- 
bers, to whose marauding purposes he could make no 
resistance, he having placed such reliance upon the 
good faith of the natives as to carry his pistol without 
a cartridge in it. The banditti made him dismount and 
hand over what little money in coin he happened to 
have, and after taking such blankets and trinkets as 
they desired, left him with his hands tied behind him, 
to o-et on as best he could. Fortunately they did not 
want his horse, which he had bought in place of the 
useless mule, and after extricating himself from his 
bonds by long struggles, he mounted his horse and 
rode on to Mexico with his drafts for money all intact. 
He seems to have placed less reliance on th« Mexicans, 



132 LIFE OF BAYARD TATLOR. 

after that encounter, and took good care to ride out of 
range of their muskets and to keep himself supplied 
with ammunition. 

His visit to the Mexican capital was an occasion of 
great interest to him, and brought up freshly and viv- 
idly the story which Prescott has so well told of the 
Aztecs and the heroic age of Cortez. No scene in Europe 
is said to combine such extremes of sweetness and 
grandeur, of light and shade, of valley and hill, of plain 
and cragged highland, of land and water, of art and 
nature, as the valley of Mexico. There he saw the 
evidences of prehistoric civilization, and looked with 
curiosity and awe upon the towering fortress of Cha- 
pultepec, which connects the present with the ages 
past. However, Mr. Taylor could not stop long in 
that charming vale, and hastened on over the battle- 
fields of Scott to Vera Cruz. From Vera Cruz he 
went by steamer to Mobile, from thence overland to 
Charleston, S. C, and by way of North Carolina, 
Virginia, and Washington, to New York, where, 
about the middle of March, he resume his duties as 
editor of the " Tribune " with the thought that there 
he might stay the remainder of his life. 



FIRST LOVE. 133 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The Poet's First Love. — Playmates. — Miss Mary S. Agnew. — His 
Fidelity. — Poems Inspired by Affection. — Her Failing Health. 

— Consumption. — His Return to Her. — The Marriage at the 
Death-bed. — Her Death. — The Poet's Grief. — His Inner Life. 

— The Story injiis own Rhyme. 

We now enter upon the most holy ground ever 
trod by the biographer, — the sacred recesses of the 
human heart. In the annals of ordinary life, or even 
in those of many great men, the record of their 
early love may not be important to the reader. But 
to the poet, these more subtle and more tender emo- 
tions are events of the greatest importance. Every 
heart contains more or less of the poetical sentiment, 
and the love and marriage of any individual is a 
matter of great moment to him, although it may not 
be to his biographer. But here we write of a poet. 
To him, all the strings of human feeling had a clear 
and unmistakable sound. To him, the undertones ot 
life played an important part in the harmony of his 
being. All that was pure and sweet in love he saw. 
All that was beautiful and lovable in life he felt, with 
a keenness none but the poet can know. Hence to 
him, we find, as in the history of the grand poets of 
ancient days, his love was a holy sentiment, to bo 



134 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

valued as God's best gift, and to be worshipped as a 
part of Him. 

In a neighboring farm-house, but a short distance 
from his father's farm, lived Mary S. Agnew. She was 
born and reared in the same community, went to the 
same school, attended the same church, and was a 
playmate, classmate, and trusted companion. The3' 
sought each other in childhood's days, and their 
friendship ripened into love as imperceptibly and 
surely as the coming and going of the years developed 
their lives, and pressed them forward into manhood and 
womanhood. Her dark hair and eyes, her slender 
form, her lovable disposition, her conscientiousness and 
purity were presented to him in that strong light, 
under which all lovers see the merits and virtues of 
their sweethearts. Added to that was the romance 
and insight of that other sense which poets are said tc 
possess. He built a shrine to this idol wherever he 
went, and through all his early years she was, as he 
said in verse, the representative to him of the good- 
ness of God. On the farm, he made verses in her 
honor ; at the Quaker meeting he was thankful for her ; 
at the parties and social gatherings among the young 
folks, she was the centre of his thought. Not fool- 
ishly or blindly did he exhibit his affection. Not 
extravagantly or obtrusively did he follow his wooing. 
But his poetry and his prose give here and there a clew to 
the deep and fervent love of his youthful days. Some 
of his very sweetest poetry found its inspiration in 



F AITHFUIiNESS . 135 

that love, and when the volume is published, if ever 
it is, in which shall appear those sonnets, which 
have modestly been kept thus far from the public 
gaze, there will be found gems that the world cannot 
well spare. How sincere, disinterested, and noble 
was his affection, was proved by his faithful and 
unabated love, after he had seen the world and its 
loveliest ladies, and after the cruel hand of disease had 
chiselled away the round and rosy cheeks, and left, in 
place of the sparkling, blushing maiden of his early 
love, a pallid spectre — a shadow of her former self. 
In all his wanderings, he never neglected her. In all 
his most tender writings, her image is more or less 
clear. In one of his volumes, "The Poet's Journal," 
he gives a history of his love and sorrow ; of the 
awakening, after years of death, in the sweetest and 
most touching of all his poems. 

He allowed some of his earlier verses to see the 
light of print, wherein he makes mention, indirectly, 
of Mary S. Agnew. When travelling along the Dan- 
vibe, in 1845, he thus writes : — 

'' Old playmates ! bid me welcome 

Amid your brother-band ; 
Give me the old affection, — 

The glowing grasp of hand ! 
I seek no more the realms of old, — 

Here is my Fatherland. 

Come hither, gentle maiden, 
Who weep 'at in tender joy ! 



136 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYL.OK. 

The rapture of thy presence 

Repays the world's annoy, 
And calms the wild and ardent heart 

Which warms the wandering boy. 

In many a mountain fastness, 

By many a river's foam, 
And through the gorgeous cities, 

* Twas loneliness to roam ; 
For the sweetest music in my heart 

Was the olden songs of home." 

When in Florence, in 1846, he wrote a poem 
entitled "In Italy," wherein were the following ex- 
pressive lines : — 

" Rich is the soil with Fancy's gold ; 
The stirring memories of old 
Rise thronging in my hannted vision, 
And wake my spirit's young ambition. 

But as the radiant sunsets close 
Above Val d'Arno's bowers of rose. 
My soul forgets the olden glory, 
And deems our love a dearer story. 

Thy words, in Memory's ear, outchime 
The music of the Tuscan rhyme ; 
Thou standest here — the gentle-hearted — 
Amid the shades of bards departed. 

I see before thee fade away 

Their garlands of immortal bay, 

And turn from Petrarch's passion-glances 

To my own dearer heart-romances." 

** A single thought of thee effaced 
The fair Italian dream I chased ; 
For the true clime of song and sun 
Lies in the heart which mine hath won." 



POETRY OF LOVE. 137 

When he reached London in 1846, after his long 
pilgrimage, and when so reduced in funds and friends, 
he yet h'ad the time and mind to write of her these 
graceful rhymes : — 

" I 've wandered through the golden lands 
Where art and heauty blended shine — 

Where features limned by painters' hands 
Beam from the canvas made divine, 

And many a god in marble stands, 
With soul in every breathing line ; 

And forms the world has treasured long 

Within me touched the world of song." 

" Yet brighter than those radiant dreams 
Which won renown that never dies — 

Where more than mortal beauty beams 
In sybil's lips, and angel's eyes — 

One image, like the moonlight, seems 
Between them and my heart to rise, 

And in its brighter, dearer ray> 

The stars of Genius fade away." 

It is an interesting study and one not altogethei 
unprofitable, to follow, through an author's works the 
marks of his peculiar likes, joys, and sorrows. For 
in science, philosophy, history or poetry, the feelings 
of the student will unguardedly creep into his manu- 
scripts as if between the lines, and often a little 
word, or a thoughtlessly inserted sentence or comment, 
will reveal whole chapters of a life which has l)een 
carefully, scrupulously hidden. So in Bayard Tay- 
lor's poetry, written on sea and on land, at home and 
abroad, in poverty and in affluence, there is a certain 



138 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

vein of originality, and certain references to his own 
life, which, when placed together, give the clew to his 
inner life, and reveal a charming domestic scehe, which 
cannot be described in prose. One of his characters 
in " The Poet's Journal," says : — 

" Dear Friend, one volume of your life I read 

Beneath these vines : you placed it in my hand 

And made it mine, — but how the tale has sped 
Since then, I know not, or can understand 

From this fair ending only. Let me see 
The intervening chapters, dark and bright, 

In order, as you lived them." 

To which another makes reply in the words below, 
which so delicately and feelingly refer to his early 
love, his sorrow at the death of Mary, his first wife, 
and the brightness of the later affection. To one who 
has passed through the same trying experience, these 
lines are marvellously expressive : — 

" What haps I met, what struggles, what success 
Of fame, or gold, or place, concerns you less, 
Dear friend, than how I lost that sorest load 
I started with, and came to dwell at last 
In the House Beautiful." 

" You, who would write * Besurgam ' o 'er my dead, 
The resurrection of my heart shall know." 

" For pain, that only lives in memory, 
Like battle-scars, it is no pain to show." 

Then he goes on to recite a tale so like his own, that 
it needs scarce any change, but to substitute the names 



ILLNESS OF MISS AGNEW. 139 

of himself, and those he loved, for the fictitious names 
we find in the poems. But, before making farther 
quotation, the reader should be made acquainted with 
the circumstances which prompted those illuminated 
lines. 

While Mr. Taylor was away, Miss Agnew gradually 
and surely declined in health, until consumption, 
with all its terrible certainty and serpent-like stealth, 
made her its victim. It was one of those unaccountable 
visitations which sometimes come to the young and 
beautiful in the midst of joy and perfect content. How 
sadly the news of her sickness fell upon the heart of 
her lover, and how tenderly and anxiously he prayed 
and waited for letters from her, which should contain 
better tidings, he has himself related. Pale and weak, 
she greeted him on his return from California, with the 
prediction that she could not live beyond the falling 
leaves. No skill, no tender nursing, no charm of an 
abiding love, could stay the hand of death, which, as 
unseen and secret as the decay in a rose, gradually 
stole away her color, her beauty, and her life. 

He felt that he must lose her ; and the whole world, 
which had before appeared so bright, became dark and 
chilly. The test showed that while his ambition led 
him to see the great nations of the earth, to write 
poems for posterity, and to write his name in italics 
on the scrolls of fame, there was one solace, one com- 
fort, one desire, which included all the others and made 
them subservient. He was true to his plighted word. 



140 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

H'^ had become noted and prosperous, while she had 
remained at the country farm-house in Kennett. He 
was the associate of Bryant, Greeley, Webster, and 
Willis ; she, the companion of the farmers and Quakers 
of Chester County. But strong, manly, and honest, 
his love knew no abatement and his respect felt no 
check. 

It is a touching picture — that simple, solemn mar- 
riage in the room of the patient, an almost helpless in- 
valid ! He came to redeem his pledge ; and in that 
simple abode, with death standing just outside the 
door, with a bride scarce able to whisper that she took 
him for her lawful spouse, he became a husband. 
The dim, appealing eyes, the tender little flush in her 
cheek, the tremor of her thin hand, told the joy in her 
pure heart, but showed also that her happiness would 
be as brief as it was sincere. 

The marriage took place Oct. 24th, 1850, and on the 
21st of the following December his wife died. She 
lingered much longer than her friends expected. At 
the marriage it was said that she could not live but a 
very few days. Yet, so soon was it after their union, 
that the day which is usually the happiest and the day 
which is usually the gloomiest in a man's lif(;, came 
to him within ten weeks of each other. A year after 
her death, he Avrote a poem, "Winter Solstice," in 
which he mentions his bereavement : — 

" — For when the gray autumnal gale 
Came to despoil the dying year, 



EXPRESSIONS OF GRIEF. 141 

Passed with the slow retreating sun, 
As day by day some beams depart, 
The beauty and the life of one, 
Whose love made Summer iu my heart. 

Day after day, the latest flower, 

Her faded being waned away, 

More pale and dim with every hour, — 

And ceased upon the darkest day ! 

The warmth and glow that with her died 

No light of coming suns shall bring ; 

The heart its wintry gloom may hide, 

But cannot feel a second Spring. 

O darkest day of all the year ! 

In vain thou com'st with balmy skies, 

For, blotting out their azure sphere. 

The phantoms of my Fate arise : 

A blighted life, whose shattered plan 

No after fortune can restore ; 

The perfect lot, designed for Man, ^ 

That should be mine, but is no more." 

Still later, he gave expression to his loneliness in 
that most pathetic of all his writings, "The Phantom." 

" Again I sit within the mansion. 
In the old, familiar seat ', 
And shade and sunshine chase each other 
O 'er the carpet at my feet." 

" And many kind, remembered faces 
Within the doorway come, — 
Voices, that wake the sweeter music 
Of one that now is dumb. 

They sing, in tones as glad as ever. 

The songs she loved to hear ; 
They braid the rose in summer garlands, 

Whose flowers to her were dear 



142 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



And still, her footsteps in the passage, 

Her bl'ishes at the door, 
Her timid words of maiden welcome, 

Come back to me once more." 



" She stays without, perchance, a moment, 
To dress her dark-brown hair ; 
I hear the rustle of her garments, — 
Her light step on the stair ! " 

" She tarries long : but lo ! a whisper 
Beyond the open door. 
And, gliding through the quiet sunshine. 
A shadow on the floor I " 

" But my heart grows sick with weary waiting 
As many a time before : 
Her foot is ever at the threshold. 
Yet never passes o'er." 

lu his "Picture of St. John" he describes, with a 
feeling born of experience, a scene like the closing 
one in the life of his wife. 

" Day by day 
Her cheeks grew thin, her footstep faint and slow ; 
And yet so fondly, with such hopeful play 
Her pulses beat, they masked the coming woe. 
Joy dwelt with her, and in her eager breath 
His cymbals drowned the hollow drums of death ; 
Life showered its promise, surer to betray. 
And the false Future crumbled fast away. 

Aye, she was happy I God be thanked for this, 
That she was happy I — happier than she knew, 



A TALE OF SORROW. 143 

Had even the hope that cheated her been true ; 
For from her face there beamed such wondrous bliss, 
As cannot find fulfilment here, and dies." 

Nearer the end of the same poem, he writes : — 

" With cold and changeless face beside her grave 
I stood, and coldly heard the shuddering sound 
Of coffin-echoes, smothered underground." 

And still later he says, as only he can say who has felf • 
it; — 

" My body moved in its mechanic course 
Of soulless function : thought and passion ceased, 
Or blindly stirred with undirected force, — 
A weary trance which only Time decreased 
By slow reductions." 

A sonnet of that dark hour, written on a leaf of 
his diary, remains to us, from which we quote two 
verses ; — 

*' Moan, ye wild winds ! around the pane, 
And fall, thou drear December rain ! 
Fill with your gusts the sullen day, 
Tear the last clinging leaves away I 
Reckless as yonder naked tree. 
No blast of yours can trouble me." 

" Moan on, ye winds ! and pour, thou rain I 
Your stormy sobs and tears are vain. 
If shed for her whose fading eyes, 
Will open soon on Paradise ; 
The eye of Heaven shall blinded be. 
Or ere ye cease, if shed for me." 



144 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Here is another sad, sad wail, to be found in his 
'' A atumnal Vespers " : — 

'The liglit is dying out o'er all tlie land, 
And in my heart the light is dying. She, 
My life's best life, is fading silently 
From Earth, from me, and from the dreams we planned, 
Since first Love led us with his beaming hand 

From hope to hope, yet kept his crown in store. 
The light is dying out o 'er ail the land : 
To me it comes no more. 

The blossom of my heart, she shrinks away 

Stricken with deadly blight : more wan and weak 
Her love replies in blanching lip and cheek, 

And gentler iu her dear eyes, day by day. 

God, iu Thy mercy, bid the arm delay, 

Which thro' her being smites to dust my own ! 

Thou gav 'st the seed Thy sun and showers ; why slay 
The blossoms yet unblown ? 

In vain, — in vain ! God will not bid the Spring 
Replace with sudden green the Autumn's gold ; 
And as the night-mists, gathering damp and cold. 

Strike up the vales where water-courses sing, 

Death's mist shall strike along her veins, and cling 
Thenceforth forever round her glorious frame : 

For all her radiant presence. May shall bring 
A memory and a name." 

Again, in " The Two Visions," was the low moan of 
a poet's stricken heart. 

" Through days of toil, through nightly fears, 
A vision blessed my heart for years ; 
And so secure its features grew, 
My heart believed the blessing trua 



TELLS HIS OWN STORY. 145 

I saw her there, a household dove, 
lu coasummated peace of love, 
And sweeter joy and saintlier grace 
Breathed o 'er the beauty of her face." 

"That vision died, in drops of woe, 
In blotting drops, dissolving slow : 
Now, toiling day and sorrowing night, 
Another vision fills my sight. 
A cold mound in the winter snow ; 
A colder heart at rest below ; 
A life in utter loneness hurled, 
And darkness over all the world." 

How accurately he portrayed his inner life, from 
the death of Mary to his subsequent marriage, can 
only be understood by reading his poem of "The 
Poet's Journal" entire. But, as far as brief quota- 
tions may give it, we will try to supply enough for 
the purposes of a book such as this is intended to 
be. In his despair he writes : — 

*' And every gift that Life to me had given 

Lies at my feet, in useless fragments trod : " 
There is no justice or in Earth or Heaven : 
There is no pity in the heart of God." 



" I pine for something human, 
Man, woman, young or old — 
Something to meet and welcome, 
Something to clasp and hold. 

I have a mouth for kisses. 

But there 's no one to give and take ; 
I have a heart in my bosom 

Beating for nobody's sake." 

10 



146 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

"The sea might rise and drown me,— 
Clitfs fall and crush my head, — 
Were there one to love mo, living, 
Or weep to see me dead ! " 



Last night tihe Tempter came to me, and said : 
Why sorrow any longer for the dead ? 
The wrong is done : thy tears and groans are naught . 
Forget the Past, — thy pain but lives in thought. 
Night after night, I hear thy cries implore 
An answer : she will answer thee no more. 
Give up thine idle prayer that Death may come 
And thou mayst somewhere find her : Death is dumb 
To those that seek him. Live : for youth is thine. 
Let not thy rich blood, like neglected wine. 
Grow thin and stale, but rouse thyself, at last. 
And take a man's revenge upon the Past.' " 



" This heart is flesh, I cannot make it stone : 
This blood is hot, I cannot stop its flow, 
These arms are vacant — whereso 'er I go, 
Love lies in other's arms and shuns my own.* 



Long, long ago, the Hand whereat I railed 

In blindness gave me courage to subdue 

This wild revolt : I see wherein I failed : 

My heart was false, when most I thought it true, 

My sorrow selfish, when I thought it pure. 

For those we lose, if still their love endure 

Translation tc that other land, where Love 

Breathes the immortal wisdom, ask in heaven 

No greater sacrifice than we had given 

On earth, our love's integrity to prove. 

If we are blest to know the other blest, 

Then treason lies in sorrow." 



" I had knelt, in the awful Presence, 
And covered my guilty head. 



HIS POEMS. 147 

And received His absolution, 
For my sins toward the dead." 

** Now first I dare remember 
That day of death and woe : 
Within, the dreadful silence. 
Without, the sun and snow." 



" When wild azaleas deck the knoll. 

And cinque-foil stars the fields of home. 
And winds, that take the white-weed, roll 
The meadows into foam : 

Then from the jubilee I turn 

To other Mays that I have seen. 
Where more resplendent blossoms bum, 
And statelier woods are green ; — 

Mays, when my heart expanded first, 

A honeyed blossom, fresh with dew ; 
And one sweet wind of heaven dispersed 
The only clouds I knew. 

For she, whose softly-murmured name 

The music of the month ex^jressed, 
Walked by my side, in holy shame 
Of girlish love confessed." 

" The old, old tale of girl and boy, 
Repeated ever, never old : 
To each in turn the gates of joy. 
The gates of heaven unfold." 



' So I think, when days are sweetest, 
And the world is wholly fair. 

She may sometime steal upon me 
Through the dimness of the air, 

With the cross upon her bosom 
And the amaranth in her hair. 



148 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Once to meet her, all ! to meet her, 
And to hold her gently fast 

Till I blessed her, till she blessed me, — 
That were happiness, at last : 

That were bliss beyond our meetings 
In the autumns of the Past ! " 



*' Still, still that lovely ghost appears, 
Too fair, too pure, to bid depart ; 
No riper love of later years 
Can steal its beauty from the heart. ' 

" Dear, boyish heart that trembled so 
With bashful fear and fond unrest, — 
More frightened than a dove, to know 
Another bird within its nest ! " 



" Restored and comforted, I go 

To grapple with my tasks again ; 
Through silent worship taught to know 
The blessed peace that follows pain." 



" If Love should come again, I ask my heart 
In tender tremors, not unmixed with pain, 
Couldst thou be calm, nor feel thine ancient smart, 
If Love should come again ? 

" Couldst thou unbar the chambers where his nest 
So long was made, and made, alas! in vain. 
Nor with embarrassed welcome chill thy guest. 
If Love should come again ? " 



" Have I passed through Death's unconscious birth. 
In a dream the midnight bare ? 
I look on another and fairer Earth : 
I breathe a wondrous air ! " 

'* Is it she that shines, as never before, 
The tremulous hills above, — 
Or the heart within me, awake once more 
To the dawning light of love f " 



THE STORY IN RHYME. 149 

Bathed in the morning, let my heart surrendej 

The doubts that darkness gave, 
And rise to meet the advancing splendor — 

O Night! no more thy slave. " 



*' One thought sits brooding in my bosom, 
As broodeth in her nest the dove ; 
A strange, delicious doubt o'ercomes me, — 
But is it love ? 

" I see her, hear her, daily, nightly : 
My secret dreams around her move, 
Still nearer drawn in sweet attraction ; — 
Can this be love 1 " 

*' I breathe but peace when she is near me, — 
A peace her absence takes away : 
My heart commands her constant presenoo r 
WiU hers obey ? " 



** ' Canst thou forgive me, Angel mine, 
I cried : 'that Love at last beguiled 
My heart to build a second shrine f 
See, still I kneel and weep at thine. 
But I am human, thou divine ! ' 
Still silently she smiled. 

" ' Dost undivided worship claim. 

To keep thine altar undefiled f 

Or must I bear thy tender blame, 

And in thy pardon feel my shame, 

Whene'er I breathe another name f ' 

She looked at me, and smiled." 



■ No treason in my love I see. 

For treason cannot dwell with truth ; 
But later blossoms crown a tree 

Too deeply set to die in youth. 



150 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

The blighted promise of the old 
In this new love is reconciled ; 

For, when my heart confessed its hold, 
The lips of ancient sorrow smiled I 

It brightens backward through the Past 
And gilds the gloomy path I trod, 

And forward, till it fades at last 
In light, before the feet of God, 

Where stands the saint, whose radiant brcvr 
This solace beams, while I adore : 

Be happy : if thou lovedst not now, 
Thou never couldst have loved before ! ** 



* Would she, my freedom and my bliss to knoTf, 

With my disloyalty be reconciled, 
And from her bower in Eden look below, 
And bless the Soldan's child ? 

For she is lost : but she, the later bride, 
Who came my ruined fortune to restore. 

Back from the desert wanders at my side. 
And leads me home once more. 

If human love, she sighs, could move a wife 
The holiest sacrifice of love to make. 

Then the transfigured angel of thy life 
Is happier for thy sake ! " 



" * It was our wedding-day 

A month ago, ' dear heart, I hear you say. 

If months, or years, or ages since have passed, 

I know not : I have ceased to question Time. 

I only know that once there pealed a chime 

Of joyous bells, and then I held you fast, 

And all stood back, and none my right denied. 

And forth we walked : the world was free and wide 

Before us. Since that day 

I count my life : The Past is washed away." 



GBEAT GBIEF. 151 



CHAPTER XVn. 

Grief and Despair. — Describes his Feelings. — Failing Health. — 
Severe Mental Labor. — Decides to go to Africa. — Visits Vien- 
na. — Arrival at Alexandria. — Sails up the Nile. — Scenes in 
Cairo. — The Pyramids. — The Lovely Nile. — An Important and 
Pleasant Acquaintance. — A Lasting Friendship. — Learning the 
Language. — Assuming the Costume. — Sights by the Way. 

The great grief which Mr. Taylor felt when his wife 
died, was so deep and keen that he was for many 
months unreconciled, and in a mental state somewhat 
akin to despair. His appearance among his friends, 
whether at Kennett or in the office of the " Tribune " at 
New York, did not, however, betray his feelings so 
much as his private correspondence and occasional 
poems. He was the sincerest of mourners ; and his 
natural susceptibility to every shade of emotion 
made this severe bereavement an occasion of untold 
suffering. In his endeavors to banish the gloomy 
spectre, he resorted to hard work. Hence, the first 
half of the year 1851 was one of the busiest seasons 
of his life. He wrote early and late. He composed 
poems and essays, wrote editorials, and edited corre- 
spondence, some of it being the labor attached to his 
profession, but a great share of it written to occupy 
his mind and shut out his affliction. 



152 LIFE OF BAYAIiD TAYLOR. 

His "Rhymes of Travel," which had been published 
after his return from California, called the attention of 
the reading public to him as a poet, and there was a 
strono^ demand for another volume. His friends ursjed 
him to write, his uneasy heart pushed him into work, 
and the newspapers kept questioning him about 
the advent of a second volume, until he decided to 
bring out his book of "Romances, Lyrics, and Songs." 
There was one poem in that volume which was very 
sweet when wholly disconnected with history, but 
which becomes fascinating and sad as Milton's lament 
for his eyesight, when we once know the circumstances 
and the mental condition in which it was written* Two 
verses of that poem were printed, as follows:— 

" Give me music, sad and strong, 
Drawn from deeper founts than song ; 
More impassioned, full, and free, 
Thau the poet's numbers be : 
Music which can master thee, 
Stern enchantress. Memory ! 
Piercing through the gloomy stress 
Of thy gathered bitterness, 
As the summer lightnings play 
Through a cloud's edge far away. 

Give me music ; I am dumb ; 
Choked with tears that never come; 
Give me music ; sigh or word 
Such a sorrow never stirred, — 
Sorrow that with blinding pain 
Lies like fire on heart and brain. 
Earth and heaven bring no relief, 
I am dumb ; this weight of grief 
Locks my lips ; I cannot cry : 
* Give me music, or I die." 



STARTING AGAIN. 153 

It was then that lie wrote those pathetic Ihies, so full 
of his sadness and so descriptive of his bereavement, 
that he was never satisfied with a name for them and 
finally left them withont a title, the first couplet of 
which sufficiently indicates the tenor, — 

" Moan, ye wild winds ! around the pane, 
And fall, thou drear December rain! " 

Such a sorrowful heart and snch an overworked 
brain were too great a load for one human body to car- 
ry. His physical strength had never been remarkable, 
and there had been seasons before his visit to Europe 
when his health seemed permanantly impaired. So 
when this great strain was made upon his system it 
bef^an to weaken. To continue the effort was suicidal, 
and stoutly condemned by his relatives and friends. 
He then recalled his exhilarating walks among the 
Alps and on the plains of Europe. He kindled anew 
his zeal for adventure. He studied the map of the 
world to decide where was presented the most fliv- 
orable field for discovery. He wished for rest from 
sorrow, and rest from close application to literary 
work. Such a relief could only be found in a climate 
and among a people wholly different from his own. 
In this choice he was guided somewhat by a fortunate 
opportunity to cross the Atlantic as a guest and friend, 
and by the accounts which a literary companion in the 
office of the "Tribune" gave of the interesting people 
and scenery along the coast of Palestine and Greece. 



154 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

The winter had passed and the soothing winds of 
summer seemed so grateful and necessary, that be 
decided to pass the next winter on the Mediterranean, 
should his health admit of the necessary outlay of 
strength. In writing about that undertaking after- 
wards, he said a trip into Africa would furnish good 
material for a travelling correspondent and hence that 
continent .was selected. "But," he said, "there were 
other influences acting upon me which I did not fully 
comprehend at the time, and cannot now describe 
without going too deeply into matters of private 
history." But while in Central Africa, enjoying the 
invigorating breezes along the Nile, he reveals a part of 
that private history by an incidental exclamation pub- 
lished in a letter to the " Tribune." " Oh ! what a rest 
is this from the tantalizing and sorrowful suggestions 
of civilization." He fled from sorrow — driven into the 
desert. 

Having reached Sm3'rna, on the coast of Asia Minor, 
by the overland route to Constantinople via Vienna, 
he re-embarked at that port for Alexandria in Egypt, 
arriving at the latter place Nov. 1, 1851. We shall 
not attempt here to give in any satisfactory detail" 
the record of his wanderings in Africa, as they 
are so charmingly and instructively told in the book 
which he wrote concerning them, and as no book of 
travel in Egypt, except a scientific work, can supplant 
or equal the many which already honor our shelves. 
The writer having been over a large portion of Mr, 



A FORTUNATE FRIENDSHIP. 155 

Taylor's routes, and feeling much indebted to him 
for his works, which were often used as guides, 
has perhaps a greater interest in recording his travels, 
than the reader would have in going through the story 
a second time. Hence, for the purposes of this outline 
sketch of Mr. Taylor's life, we shall introduce only 
such incidents and facts connected with his wanderings 
as appear to have some direct or unusual bearing upon 
his character, or which display some peculiarity of his 
genius or taste. 

He said, in a letter to a friend in New York, that he 
" owed a debt of gratitude " to the Providence which 
led him, to the country which attracted him, and to the 
vessel which carried him from Smyrna to Alexandria. 
That sentiment was awakened in his heart by the way 
in which some of the important events in his after life 
pointed back to that trip and to the valuable friend he 
met there. Mr. Taylor was of a genial, approachable 
nature, and easily made the acquaintance of any person 
whom he met. But having German blood in his veins, 
loving the German language, and entertaining a sincere 
respect for German literature, he naturally sought the 
company of the German people. On the very threshold 
of this trip into Africa he made the acquaintance of a 
German gentleman, whose culture and geniality made 
him a great acquisition in a strange land. They seem 
to have taken a deep interest in each other from the 
first time they met. It may be because their condition 
in life, socially and circumstantially, was so similar; 



156 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

but the more reasonable explanation is found in their 
similar tastes and equal regard for the works of genius 
and the beauties of nature. It will be like a romance, 
when told in all its detail, as it might be now, and will 
be when the present generation passes away. How little 
could his human understanding comprehend the great 
results turning upon the simple, commonplace self-in- 
troduction to a German travelling companion ! This 
friend, whom he met, and with whom he made the jour- 
ney up to the cataracts of the Nile, was perhaps as 
remarkable a man as Taylor, and belonged to a family 
of scholars and long respected agricultural citizens of 
the German principality of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 

The chief merit of Mr. Taylor s descriptions lay in 
their apparent frankness and their charming details. 
He appeared to think that every reader was acquainted 
with the works of those great archoeologists, Lepsius 
and Champollion, and did not attempt to supply to 
his readers the information they had already given. 
He seems to have imagined that all the reading public 
wished to follow him, and he gave such information as 
the tourist would need. He told about the clothes he 
purchased in Alexandria, about the fit of his Arab attire, 
about the cost of a dinner, the conversation between 
dragomen and boatmen, the personal appearance of his 
companions, the faithlessness of his guide, the dirt}' 
appearance of his boat, and the gorgeous sunset. He 
described his own sensations and actions with the 
boldness of one unconscious of any motive to conceal 



EMBARKS ON THE NILE. 157 

or deceive. He reveals the sorrow of his heart by 
occasional remarks such as these : " For many months 
past I had known no mood of mind so peaceful and 
grateful." — " I am away from reminders of sorrow." — 
" It is not the beauty of the desert that gratifies me so 
much, in these days, after all, as the absence of civili- 
zation." 

The party, which consisted of Mr. Taylor, the Ger- 
man companion, and an Italian, engaged one of the 
Nile boats, at Alexandria, for the trip up the Nile, and 
after testing the comforts, or misery, of the Egyptian 
hotels, seeing Cleopatra's Needle ( now in London ) 
and Pompey's Pillar, which were then as in later years 
about all that there was to be seen of interest in Alex- 
andria, they started on their lazy voyage up the won- 
derful Nile. He wrote with great enthusiasm of the 
sweet rest he found in a pipe of tobacco, after the man- 
ner of all habitual smokers. He seems to havo had 
plenty of time to muse and smoke as he slowly ascended 
the stream. It has often been a subject of wonder 
that he could afterwards remember so many incidents 
and the impressions they had made on him, when per- 
haps weeks of time and some more exciting transactions 
had intervened. But Mr. Taylor did not wait long be- 
fore recording his ideas and comments, and was in the 
habit of keeping a memoranda-book always at hand, 
and while travelling, noted with a pencil any peculiar 
thought or incident which awakened attention. 

At Atfeh, which has been for hundreds of years an 



158 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

intermediate stopping-place on the highway and river 
between Alexandria and Cairo, he clambered up into 
the town and witnessed a marriage procession. He 
appears to have been inclined to get a near view of the 
bride ; but the relatives hurried her off, and with cries 
and threatening gestures drove him back to cover. 
But he decided that if he could not see the bride, he 
would do the next best thing, and accordingly visited 
her father. The disconsolate parent was being com- 
forted by a hoarse chant and appeared to be as cheerful 
as could be expected considering the din. 

At the town of Nadir he went into a low mud hut, 
which pretended to be a cafe, and there saw the Egyp- 
tian fandango danced by the inmates. He records the 
shape and sound of the musical instruments and with 
polished and concise language pictured the scene to 
the reader's eye. This, with the accounts of the im- 
provements, rates of toll, and the manner of passing 
the boats by locks, and government officials, with many 
minor details is told in a manner which, notwithstand- 
ing the dryness of the subject, makes most fascinating 
reading. 

But he counted his entrance into Cairo, the capital 
of Egypt, as the actual beginning of his tour into 
Africa. For at Alexandria and along the Nile as far 
as Bourak the people exhibited some traits which con- 
nect them with the civilized West. But Cairo is 
wholly Egyptian. The centuries have made no appar- 
ent changes in the people. The donkeys, the veiled 



IN CAIRO. 159 

women, the fierce Arabs, the water-skins, the fountains, 
the slaves, the palms, the white domes, auJ the low 
shops revive the historical associations and personify 
the Past. Like an oasis in the adjacent desert was the 
Hotel d'Europe. But it served to impress the reality 
of these surroundings more forcibly upon the travellers. 
With a readiness and enjoyment which his companions 
did not share, he accustomed himself to the manners 
and appearance of the people, and it was scarcely a 
day before Mr. Taylor would smoke his perfumed chi- 
bouk, sit cross-legged, and eat with his fingers like a 
native Arab. He rode the little donkeys as well as 
any citizen of Cairo, and was even more reckless than 
they, if that were possible, as he rode through the mar- 
ket-places at a furious speed. The Egyptians, like the 
Germans, Italians, French, Hungarians, and Syrians, 
felt a kind of fellowship for Mr. Taylor, and admired 
his good-sense in appreciating and adopting so many 
of their customs. He was the acquaintance and confi- 
dential friend of a dozen old Arabs before he had been 
two days in Cairo. He was a lover of mankind. He 
sympathized with them all. As the Shereef of Mecca 
rides by, Mr. Taylor admires his dignity and his im- 
posing retinue. As a marriage procession files through 
the streets, he comments on the playing of the flutes, 
the crimson robes of the bride, and the diadem, with 
the simplicity of a country maiden in America. He 
enjoys the athletic tricks of the showmen, the skill of 
the swordsmen, the voices of the singers, the zeal of 



160 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

the beggars, and the endurance of the laborers. He m 
one of the same human family. They know it, and feel 
it, and he is welcome. 

The German acquaintance, who had not intended to 
go farther than Cairo, was so delighted with Mr. Tay- 
lor's companionship and Mr. Taylor was so interested in 
him, that he decided to go up the Nile as far as Assouan, 
which was on the border of the Central African coun- 
tries. Mr. Taylor speaks with sentiments of enthusi- 
astic thankfulness of his good fortune in thus securing 
a travelling companion, whose tastes and sentiments 
were so akin to his own. He little thought then, that 
while trying to shut out his sorrow by voluntary exile, 
he was opening the door to a second love. Mr. Tay- 
lor's singular admiration and love for his companion is 
almost unaccountable, unless we adopt some theory of 
foreordination or providential design. 

A most interesting, amusing, and friendly trip they 
had up the stream, for thousands of years so historic, 
in a boat manned by ten boatmen, and of which the}^ 
were the commanders. Neither of them had ever been 
in Egypt before, but their maps and guide-books, 
coupled with their early historical training, made the 
localities along their route seem more familiar to them 
than to the dragomen, who made it a business to guide 
travellers. Thay named their boat the "Cleopatra," 
ran up the Stars and Stripes to the peak, and, with 
contented minds but active brains, enjoyed to the full 
the strange scenes and historic ruins which showed 



ON THE NILE. 161 

themselves on every hand. They first visited the Pyr- 
amids, where Mr. Taylor gratified his taste for climb- 
ing heights, and nearly killed himself by rushing down. 
With characteristic regard for those who were to 
come after him, Mr. Taylor rebuked the importunities 
of the backsheesh-loving Arabs about the Pyramids, 
and obtaining no satisfaction from them, he reported 
them to the chief, who compelled the greedy desper- 
adoes to submit to a severe whipping. 

They visited ancient Memphis, which the French 
explorer, Mariette, was then exhuming, and trod the 
pavements over which had passed the feet of Menes, 
Amasis, Pharaoh, Strabo, and Cambyses. They were 
hospitably entertained by the great antiquarian, and 
felt that such a visit was ample reward for all their 
outlay. From Memphis they proceeded to Siout, and 
on the way talked, composed, and sung the praises of 
Father Nile. It may be that Mr. Taylor's mood, which 
he so often mentions, had an influence upon his taste, 
or it may be that the season was one peculiarly adapted 
to the exhibition of beauty in the Nile, but the writer, 
in a later year, was not so charmed by the scenery and 
river as Mr. Taylor appears to have been. No other 
traveller has written such glowing encomiums upon the 
Nile as Mr. Taylor recorded in his letters, and either 
he appreciated nature more than other travellers, or 
there was something in his circumstances which placed 
a halo of beauty about the palms and meadows. In 
the " Nilotic Drinking-Song " Mr. Taylor said : — 
u 



162 LIFE OF BAYAKD TAYLOR. 

" Cloud never gave birth, nor cradle the Earth, 
To river so grand and fair as this is : 
Not the waves that roll us the gold of Pactolus, 
Nor cool Cephissus, nor classic Ilissus. 
The lily may dip 
Her ivory lip, 
To kiss the ripples of clear Eurotas ; 
But the Nile brings balm 
From the myrr and palm, 
And the ripe, voluptuous lips of the lotus. 

The waves that ride on his mighty tide 

Were poured from the urns of unvisited mountains ; 
And their sweets of the South mingle cool in the mouth, 
With the freshness and sparkle of Northern fountains. 

Again and again 

The goblet we drain — 
Diviner a stream never Nereid swam on : 

For Isis and Cms 

Have quaffed before us, 
And Ganymede dipped it for Jupiter Ammon." 

His admiration was not spasmodic, for he always 
mentioned the Nile as the most majestic of rivers. To 
the majority of travellers, however, the hoary ruins of 
mighty cities, the tombs of priests, and the pyramids 
of kings are so much more exciting and mysterious, 
that the Nile is itself of secondary importance. 

Yet, Mr. Taylor, with all his interest in the river, 
did not have less in the celebrated localities and ancient 
remains. He ascended many honeycombed mountains, 
to creep among the bones of men who lived thirty-live 
hundred years ago. He gazed with a yearning inter- 
est upon the broken columns of unknown temples, and 



COSTUME AND LANGUAGE. 163 

dreamed of their former grandeur, while apathetically 
overseeing the affiiirs of his little monarchy over which 
he kept floating the Stars and Stripes. He became so 
absorbed in the climate, the people, and the history of 
the land, that he soon adopted the full costume of the 
country and became henceforth an Arab with the 
others. He was marvellously quick in picking up the 
words and phrases of any language, and soon, with the 
aid of a small phrase-book, he could readily converse 
with the natives along the shore. These characteristics 
made it safe and pleasant for him to travel where many 
others would have found only misery and death. 



164 lilFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER XVITT. 

Moslem Worsliip. — Scenery of the Nile. — Fellowship with the 
People. — The Temple of Dendera. — Mr. Taylor's Enthusi- 
asm. — Luxor. — Karnak. — The Extent of Ancient Thebes. — 
The Tombs and Statues. — The Natives. — Arrives at Assouan. 
- The Island of Philae. — Separation of the Friends. — 
Starts for the White Nile. — Trip through the Desert. — Again 
on the Nile. — Reception by the People and Officials. — Visits 
Ancient Meroe. 

Mr. Taylor's sympathy with all mankind led him to 
regard with sincere respect the daily religious ceremo- 
nies which his Moslem boatmen performed, with their 
faces toward Mecca. He often mentioned their punc- 
tuality and apparent sincerity, and contrasted it with 
some of the formal, half-hearted proceedings in some 
Christian churches. His regard for conscientious wor- 
ship, which appeared to characterize the ignorant Arabs, 
appears more striking to persons who have travelled 
the same route over which Mr. Taylor went, for it is 
so common a sight to see bigoted, conceited Europeans 
ridiculing the prostrations, prayers, and gestures of 
the worshippers. The writer most keenly regrets 
having been compelled to witness the caricaturing of 
a Moslem at prayer, by a coarse, hard-hearted, brutal 
Christian countryman, while the sad and shocked 



LIFE ON THE NILE. 165 

believers in Mahomet stood by, scarce able to resist the 
temptation to throw the Frank into the Nile. In the 
lovable, noble character of Mr. Taylor, there was no 
inclination to ridicule the conscientious belief of any 
man, and instinctively he kept silent and patiently 
endured the delay when the call to prayer took his 
employees from their labor. In return for his sincere 
regard for them, he received the love and most faith- 
ful service of the natives. They stole nothing from 
him. They shielded him from enemies and affection- 
ately cared for his health. 

Thus, with friends for boatmen, an admirer for 
a guide, and a most agreeable comrade for a travelling 
companion, he floated along, inhaling from every 
breeze the essence of health and comfort. The banks 
were covered with the richest and rarest verdure, for 
it was the Egyptian spring. There were luxuriant 
grasses, palms and sugar-cane; there flourished wheat, 
cotton, maize, hemp, indigo, tobacco, oranges, olives, 
and dates, springing from the richest soil which 
civilized man has yet seen. Harvests came and went 
in confused succession ; the ripe fruit with blossom ; 
threshing-floors piled with ripe dourra, while around, 
the new wheat seeking the sunlight, betokened 
a bounty munificent and inexhaustible. So prolific 
and speedy was the growth (;f the crops that the peo- 
ple could not, with their rude implements, avail them- 
selves of the full benefits of one harvest before its rank 
successors forced them to turn their labor into other 



166 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

channels. Then, as now, the fields, for miles inland 
from the river, were checkered with canals, and the 
rude water-wheel and awkward " well-sweep " were 
kept in constant motion to supply the vast amount of 
water necessary to the irrigation of hundreds of square 
miles. There were goats, mules, horses, and a variety 
of fowl, and in the wild nooks a grand collection of 
birds of the gayest songs and plumage. The sky was 
clear, the air balmy, the breezes cool and light, the 
cabin of their boat was spacious, and their beds com- 
fortable. It was " a soothing experience for an aching 
heart." 

In the first week of December they arrived at Den- 
dera, where stands in majestic completeness one of the 
most ancient temples of Egypt. It has for thousands 
of years been half buried in the earth, and at one time 
must have been nearly hid by the shifting sands of the 
desert which once surrounded the pile. The impres- 
sion which the gigantic columns, sixty feet high, and 
the enormous blocks of stone, eight feet thick, gave to 
them, is doubtless shared in some degree by all travel- 
lers. As he walked through the shadowy recesses, 
each aperture seeming like a deep cave in a rocky 
mountain, he was filled with a solemn sense of awe 
and sadness, which so overwhelmed him that he 
peered about the avenues in silence, and involuntarily 
stood on tip-toe. The sombre grandeur of the mas- 
sive masonry, the sacred associations connected with 
the ancient worship of Osiris and Isis, the wonderful 



DENDERA AND THEBES. 167 

tales of wars, tyrannies, famines, plagues, Kameses, 
Moses, Pharaoh, Alexander, Ptolemy, Cambyses, and 
Napoleon, which those lofty statues could tell if their 
symmetrical lips could speak, awaken indescribable 
emotions, deep, thrilling, and permanent. Mr. Tay- 
lor saw a grace and an artistic merit in the stone fig- 
ures, and in the hieroglyphics that adorned the tem- 
ple, which few travellers detect or admit. To many 
travellers the figures on those old porches and halls 
seem rude and often out of proportion, and the writer 
confesses to having been one of the latter class. But 
Mr. Taylor's appreciating scrutiny may be accounted 
for on the basis that with his poetical instincts and 
thorough culture in art, there were beauties in those 
works of ancient sculptors, latent to others, but appar- 
ent and striking to him. But there is no disagreement 
as to the unspeakable solemnity of the place and the 
gloom of its lonely halls. 

The next night they reached Luxor, and caught the 
first glimpse of those interesting ruins by moonlight. 
There, silent and stately, arose the great Colonnade. 
There, quietly recalling the ancients, stood the twin 
Obelisk to the one at which Mr. Taylor had often 
looked in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, when as a 
boy he dreamed of distant Egypt. For seven miles 
around the Temple of Luxor are the ruins of ancient 
Thebes, within which were once the temples of Kar- 
nak, Luxor, Goorneh, Memnonium, and hundreds 
more, which now cumber the otherwise fertile plains. 



168 Lii^is ot^ BAYAtit) tAirtoa. 

Thebes, with its hundred gates, with its countless 
armies, with its wise men, its Colossus that sang in the 
morning sunlight, its avenues of sphinxes and gods in 
stone, lay broken, spurned, and dead be^re them. The 
same moon looked down on them that gazed on the priests 
of Isis and the palace of its Caesars. No one can imagine 
anything so solemn and grand as to stand in the moon- 
light on the haunted plains of ancient Thebes ! One 
may have thought the Coliseum at Rome impressive 
beyond description when seen in the favorable light of 
an autumn moon, but when compared with Thebes it 
is tame and insignificant. Ages and ages before the 
rape of the Sabines, these temples had been constructed. 
They saw the morning of civilization ; but now they 
are ruined and useless, the night seems best fitted for 
an appreciative view of them. Among the mighty 
colonnades whose columns are broken and falling, and 
around ofisrantic remains of ancient statues carved from 
a mountain of stone, Mr. Taylor wandered for two 
whole days. He scrutinized closely the long rows of 
ancient tombs, and stood in the rocky grave of Ra- 
meses I. The pictures on the walls of the tombs, the 
kind of rock, the original shape of the temples, the 
employments of the ancient races, the blue sky over- 
head, the clear atmosphere around, together with 
sketches of history and poetical allusions, shared in 
the interesting letters which Mr. Taylor wrote from 
Thebes. Such scenes contain an inspiration and an 
education which make scholars and statesmen '^f such 



ntJINS OF THEBES. 169 

as love history and appreciate the lessons those ruins 
teach. To one of Mr. Taylor's disposition, a visit to 
such a place was a privilege not to be lightly thrown 
away. He investigated everything, and in a manner 
bordering on recklessness he descended through small 
holes into dark subterranean tombs, and with equal har- 
dihood walked the crumbling roofs and cornices of the 
lofty ruins. He looked with disgust on the evidences 
of spoliations which were to be seen in splintered 
columns and fragments of ancient frescoes, and which 
were the work of scientific explorers. He regarded 
with a jealous anxiety the evidences of vandalism and 
decay, and wished sincerely that time and man 
would allow those precious relics of the old regime to 
remain forever intact. He appears to have regarded 
those massive wrecks as half-human, and sympathized 
with their forsaken and friendless condition. 

But in all this antiquarian excitement, which usually 
occupies the undivided attention of less enthusiastic 
travellers, Mr. Taylor neglected not the living. He 
witnessed with interest the graces of the Arabian 
dancing-girls, noticed the features of the beggar-boys, 
the methods of teaching children the Koran, and the 
worn appearance of the water-carriers. 

Leaving Luxor, they spent three or four days as- 
cending the river to Assouan, and in visiting the vil- 
lages, old temples, half-buried cities, and gorgeously 
decorated tombs in the mountain-sides, which are 
almost numberless in the valley of Upper Egypt. At 



170 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Assouan, he was most cordially received by the Gov- 
ernor and was given a friendly greeting by all the 
officials he met. From that town he made several 
excursions with his German friend, the most interest- 
ino- of which was that to the cataract of the Nile and 
the island of Phil^e. There he saw the celebrated 
temple of the time of the Ptolemies, which he looked 
upon as modern, because it was not over twenty-two 
hundred years old. But he felt sufficient interest in 
the ruins of the old city to describe that marvellous 
colonnade which has astonished so many visitors to the 
island of Philse. The reader of his letters can detect, 
however, in Mr. Taylor's description of columns, 
aisles, roofs, walls, capitals, sculptures, monoliths, 
and colossi, a vein of sadness which may have colored 
his views. At all events the ruins of Philse did not 
impress him as they seem to have affected other vis- 
itors. The fact that he was so soon to part with a 
companion for whom he felt a love like that of Jona- 
than for David, may have had more or less influ- 
ence upon his capacity to enjoy scenery or the re- 
mains of antiquity : for the writer looked upon Philse as 
one of the most interesting localities of the lower Nile, 
and cannot but regard the ruined temple as one of the 
grandest in Egypt. They visited the fields, villages, 
the tombs, the ancient quarry, wherein half-sculptured 
statues and columns still remain unmoved, and after a 
day of antiquarian research they rode back to their 
boat, as he said " with heavy hearts." The next day 



PARTING AT ASSOUAN. 171 

came the hour of parting; and these two men, one a 
young man, the other an elderly gentleman, who had 
been utter strangers forty days before, now clung to 
each other with the sincerest brotherly love and 
parted in tears. How little did Mr. Taylor think, as 
he saw the boat sailing away for Cairo with the Saxe- 
Coburg colors at the peak, where he had so long kept 
the Stars and Stripes, that they would meet again in 
the sunny southern lands of Europe, and that another 
person would join their company for life and make up 
what he termed "a sacred triad." He thought then timt 
the parting might be for all time. He was going into 
an unknown wilderness, while his friend sought again 
the lands of civilization : it was a long time before 
either could dispel the gloom which their separation 
left about them. 

Mr. Taylor took another boat at Assouan and pro- 
ceeded to Koroskb, where, with the assistance of the 
Governor and a wild Arab chieftain, whose friendship 
was purchased by presents and sociability, he secured 
the necessary camels and outfit for a trip across the 
desert. It was a hazardous undertaking for a strano-er, 
alone, unknown, to traverse the desert. If he was 
murdered, none of the authorities would care, nor 
would his death become known. He might contract 
thp terrible fever. He was liable to be eaten by wild 
bep^ts, and he ran great risk of dying of thirst or hun- 
ger on the hot sands of a trackless desert. The way 
hd^ een travelled many times before, but was all the 



172 LIFE OF BAYARD TATLOR. 

more dangerous because of the opportunity it gave 
robbers to lie in wait for tourists. But he unhesitat- 
ingly entered upon the journey, trusting in the friend- 
ship of his Nubian and Arabian servants, and in his 
own ability to withstand the heat of the sands and the 
attacks of African fever. Camping in the desert 
sands, riding a dromedary in the scorching sun, living 
upon rudely prepared food, drinking lukewarm water, 
with the sight of bones and carcasses by the way to 
warn him, and the occasional appearance of sickly re- 
turning caravans to dishearten him, he passed that arm 
of the desert between the first cataract of the Nile and 
Abou-Hammed. Thence his little caravan of six cam- 
els followed the winding river to a small town. El 
Mekheyref, where he dismissed his friendly companions, 
excepting one, who had accompanied him from Cairo, 
and set sail again on the Nile. Everywhere he was 
received with kindness and hospitality by the natives 
and by the Governors. His servants were so much 
interested in his welfare that they told the natives that 
he was a high oJEcial in the country from which he 
came, and he was treated with the respect the Eastern 
people think is due to persons of high rank. All dis- 
claimers from him were considered to be actuated by 
feelings of modesty and elevated him in the estimation 
of his entertainers. 

His visit to Meroe was an interesting episode in his 
long pilgrimage, although' he did not make such dili- 
gent search as an antiquarian among its crumbling 



MERGE. 173 

walls as lie had done in some of the other ancient cities. 
Yet his descriptions of that place are most vivid pic- 
tures and convey an idea of the topography of the 
capital of that ancient kingdom in a manner most 
readable to the stranger and very important to students 
of history. 



174 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

From Meroe to Khartoum. — Twenty-seventh Birth-day. — Desire 
to Explore Central Africa. — Ascent of the White Nile. — Ad 
venture witli the Savage Shillooks. — Visits the Natives. — Re- 
turn to Khartoum. — Crossing the Desert. — Parting with 
Friends. — Descent of the Nile. — Arrival at Cairo. 

The journey from Meroe to Khartoum on the Ethi- 
opian Nile, Mr. Taylor enjoyed very much, having lit- 
tle to do but amuse the sailors and be in turn amused 
with stories of Mohammed, of Haroun-al-Raschid, and 
the oriental wonders contained in songs and traditions. 
The climate gave him health, his genial good-nature 
brought him friends, and his experience would supply 
the necessities of life in after years. There were nar- 
row escapes from animals, men, and treacherous rapids ; 
but he had become accustomed to such things, and 
assumed enough of the Arab character to exclaim with 
them, at each escape, "It is the will of Allah." The 
day before he arrived at lOiartoum was Mr. Taylor's 
twenty-seventh birth-day. 

Having letters to many of the oJfficials of Khartoum, 
which was a military and trading station at the junc- 
tion of the Blue and the White Nile, he received a cordial 
welcome, which made him feel at once that he was 
amono- friends. He was then at the extreme outskirts 



THE WILDS OF AFRICA. 175 

of civilization. All beyond was dark and unknown. 
Trading caravans consisting of Arabs and natives often 
visited the interior, and small boats frequently went 
farther up the Nile for purposes of traffic. But there 
was little known about the people, the topography 
of the country, or of the course of the Nile. There 
was a Catholic mission at Khartoum, where the mis- 
sionaries treated Mr. Taylor with great consideration 
and kindness. Some of them had made exploring 
excursions into the wilds of Central Africa, and it was 
his hope that he could get into some expedition with 
them during that season. But in that he was disap- 
pointed. None of the missionaries were intending to 
visit the tribes to the south that season, and no other 
suitable opportunity presented itself. He did not give 
up the hope of seeing the unexplored regions of the 
interior, until he had exhausted every means in his 
power for procuring a fit escort. The unfortunate com- 
bination of circumstances, which prevented him from 
searching for the sources of the Nile, postponed the 
revelations which he would have made, until they were 
unfolded by another newspaper correspondent, H. M. 
Stanley. 

So persistent was Mr. Taylor in his purpose to travel 
beyond the boundaries of the known, that he resolved 
lo go up the White Nile alone, except a few servants. 
He had met Captain Peele, whose accounts of the curi- 
osities to be found farther inland made him the more 
anxious to get a glimpse beyond. So he hired a boat. 



176 LIFE OF BAYARD TAIXOR. 

and amid the doubts of his servants and the misgivings 
of his new-found friends, he set sail up the White Nile. 
He could not hire the boatmen for a long voyage, as 
they feared the fierce cannibals of the interior, and as 
they were going beyond the protection of any military 
force. Trusting to his persuasive powers, he started 
with them, deciding to go just as far as he could get 
them to accompany him. 

On a lone river, where no other sail was to be seen ; 
in a wilderness, where even the human beings were as 
the lions and hyenas ; with no friend of his own race 
near him, he sailed on, in confidence, never seeming to 
think that he might die there alone and never be heard 
of by his relatives again. Crocodiles, hippopotami, 
and girafies flourished there, and man was the play- 
thing of both elements and beasts. Through the 
wildest scenery, among the strangest birds and animals, 
he pursued his course, trembling night and day lest 
his crew should at any moment refuse to go farther. 

At last they came to the country of the Shillooks. 
That wild tribe of negroes was known to the boatmen 
through nursery tales and traditional stories, wherein 
the savages were given very bad names ; and when 
Mr. Taylor informed them that he purposed to visit 
the village of those horrid man-eaters, they regarded 
him with looks of the most profound astonishment. 
But with a hardihood that by its boldness secured ac- 
quiescence, he commanded them to row him to the 
banks of the Nile, where the long rows of primitive 



THE WHITE NILE. 177 

huts were to be seen. Through captives and merchants 
the kingdom of the Shillool^s had become partially 
known, and a kind of jargon, like the pigeon-English 
of the Chinese, served the purposes of communication. 
One of Mr. Taylor's company could talk with them 
slightly, and with him as an interpreter, and another 
servant for a protector, he walked boldly into the vil- 
lage of the savages, taking no weapons, lest he should 
create suspicion. But they received him coldly and 
with much show of suspicion and treachery. It was a 
most dangerous experiment, and it is a matter of won- 
der that he was allowed to depart. There were large 
numbers of armed men around him, brandishing spears 
and clubs, and demanding of him all sorts of impossible 
presents. But with a calmness and seeming confidence, 
Mr. Taylor smoked with the chief, and exchanged 
presents with the subordinate officials, until they 
became friendly and docile, laying down their weapons 
and conversing cheerfully through the interpreter. 
Yet they laid a plan for plundering the party, and 
would at the last perhaps have murdered the whole 
crew, had not Mr. Taylor most adroitly and coolly 
foiled them in their designs. 

All attempts to persuade his men to go farther were 
useless. No urging, no promise of gifts, no threats 
would induce them to sail farther south, as they be • 
lieved that it was but a little way to " the end of the 
world." How eagerly he yearned for some chance to 
explore the country beyond, he often mentioned in 



178 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOE. 

after life. He was at the centre of a mighty conti- 
nent. Locked and bolted it had been for all the ages, 
and it appeared as if the door was now open and he had 
only to walk in to discover its treasures. But alas ! 
he could not go on alone. He could not swim the 
length of the river, nor find his way among the ele- 
phants and lions of the jungle. The boat turned back 
toward Khartoum, and he had no choice but to return 
with it. 

However, he made the most of the trip, and fre- 
quently visited the shore and had some very pleasant 
and instructive interviews with the tribes who live in 
that region. At one place he visited a village of the 
Hassaniyehs, and contrary to the experience of many 
other travellers,. he was cordially invited to their circle 
and treated with sincere hospitality. He mentioned 
in his book the dance of welcome which the young 
women of the village performed before him, and de- 
scribed with interesting detail their motions, features, 
forms, voices, and habits. Thus, with visits to sav- 
ages, interviews with wild beasts, and exquisite views 
of the wildest scenery ever beheld by man, he floated 
back to the friends and dwellings of lOiartoum. 

His stay in Khartoum, on his return, was brief, 
because of the approaching sickly season ; but every 
hour of his time, when awake, was occupied in visit- 
ing and being visited. Native chiefs, Arab merchants, 
holy men of the Moslem faith. Catholic priests, prin- 
cesses, soldiers, consuls, boatmen, and tame lions. 



m THE DESERT. 179 

seemed equally at home in his presence ; and his stay 
was a most delightful one for all concerned. His 
parting with his friends at Khartoum was akin to the 
separation of life-long friends, or the breaking of a 
family circle. To him the whole world was kin. 

From Khartoum he travelled in a caravan of camels, 
chartered by him for an escort, leaving the Nile 
and striking into the desert. With camel-drivers 
hard to control, with a burning sun overhead, and 
sands nearly as hot beneath, he traversed the desert 
unharmed. Once he slept with a deadly snake under 
his blanket, unconscious of his fearful danger until he 
rolled up his blanket in the morning. The open air, 
the free sun, sleeping on the sand, and eating the 
coarse food of the natives, gave him a vigor and 
healthy delight which inconveniences and dangers 
could not overcome. Sometimes the heat w^as so 
intense that the skin of his face peeled off*, and once 
or twice he felt the effects of " the desert intoxication," 
resulting from the monotonous scene and terrible heat. 
It was a dizzy sensation, and is often thought to be a 
symptom of dangerous disease. Changing camels 
at intermediate stations, and visiting the ruins of 
ancient cities and fortresses, where he found them 
cropping out of the sand or adorning some rugged 
mountain, he travelled on to Abdom, Dongola and 
Wady-Halfa, where he embarked in a boat for As- 
souan. His parting with his old dromedary, and with 
his guides, at Wady-Halfa, is mentioned by him witl^ 



180 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

the same regret that he experienced in leaving his 
other friends. But his farewell, in Cairo, to his trusted 
servant Achmet, who had been his faithful companion 
from Cairo up the Nile and back, drew tears from the 
eyes of both. 

His voyage from Wady-Halfa to Cairo was so nearly 
like his trip up the Nile, that for the purposes of this 
work it is necessary only to say that he visited many 
scenes and many ruins which were omitted on his w^ay 
up the river, and refreshed his memory by a second 
visit to the most celebrated localities. He met many 
traveHers, and heard from civilization again, arriving 
in the capital of Egypt on the first day of April, 1852, 
in excellent spirits and in good health, save a trouble- 
some soreness of the eyes, caused by the reflection of 
the sun on the water. The thin and frail body had 
assumed a fullness and strength sin*prising to note, and 
the broken heart had so accustomed itself to its load of 
grief that the weight seemed lighter than at first. 

On the Nile he wrote a poem containing among 
others, these expressive lines : — 

" Mysterious Flood, — that throngli the sileut sands 
Hast wandered, century on century, 
Watering the length of green Egyptian lands, 
Which were not, but for thee, — " 

" Thou guardest temple and vast pyramid. 

Where the gray Past records its ancient speech ; 
But in thine unrevealing breast lies hid 
WhM> thejr refuse to teJ^cU." 



THE NILE. 181 

" What were to thee the Osiriau festivals T 
Or Memnon's music on the Theban plain ? 
The carnage, when Cambyses made thy halls 
Euddy with royal slain ? " 

" In thy solemnity, thine awful calm, 
Thy grand indifference of Destiny, 
My soiil forgets its pain, and drinks the balm 
Which thou dost pro^^r me." 

Taylor. 



182 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Departure from Egypt. — A Poet in Palestiue. — Difference in Trav- 
ellers. — Mr. Taylor's Appreciation. — First View of Tyre. — 
Route to Jerusalem. — The Holy City. — Bath in the Dead Sea. 
— Appearance of Jerusalem. — Samaria. — Looking down upon 
Damascus. — Life in the eldest City. — The Bath. — Dose of 
Hashish. — Being a Turk among Turks. 

" The Poet came to the Land of the East, 

When Spring was in the air : 
The earth was dressed for a wedding feast, 

So young she seemed, and fair ; 
And the poet knew the Land of the East — 

His soul was native there. 

All things to him were the visible forms 

Of early and precious dreams, — 
Familiar visions that mocked his quest 

Beside the Western streams, 
Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds, unrolled 

In the sunset's dying beams." 

— Taylor, 1852. 

If there is any land where every grain of sand and 
every blade of grass is pervaded by thrilling associa- 
tions, that land is Palestine. Especially and peculiarly 
animated are its hills and vales to a poet such as 
Taylor proved to be. It may be that some superficial 
and matter-of-facf people who have visited the Holy 
Land in the hot season, have not felt the charm of 



IN PALESTINE. 183 

its sacrecliiess, owing to heat, barrenness, vermin, 
and beggars. There may be a small class of icono- 
clastic jokers, who, caring not how holy or tender the 
theme, never fail to use it for ridicule, if it suits their 
humoristic purpose. But the large class of travellers 
who visit Jerusalem and the country round about, feel 
the inspiring presence of the Past, and enjoy in an inde- 
scribable fullness the associations connected with it. 
In a higher and nobler degree, the mind imbued with 
poetic images, a ready imagination, and a keen 
discernment of beauty in landscape or history, will 
avail itself of the great opportunities for pleasure and 
profit which such a land supplies. In this sense Mr. 
Taylor enjoyed a great advantage. He made his 
physical being so subordinate to his mental, that no 
fatigue, no hunger, no thirst, no annoyance from beg- 
gars, nor fears of robbers, could interfere with the 
appreciation of the beautiful. How greatly he enjoyed 
his visit to Palestine, none but intimate friends ever 
knew. In his letters, he often gave way to enthusi- 
atic expressions, and in his book, often gave very vivid 
descriptions of what had been, as well as that which 
then existed. But a fear of exaggeration through 
praise, and a modest misgiving lest his poetical fancy 
should not suit his readers, led him to write in a more 
prosy vein than he talked. In conversation with 
friends in Germany and America, and often in his 
lectures, after he had finished his tours, he graphically 
pictured the impressive events of the past connected 



184 LrTE OF BAYARD tayloh. 

with Palestine, which seemed to pass like a panorama 
before him. To him, such a land would be full of 
interest, whether he trod its fields at a time of the 
year when it was luxuriant, or at a season when the 
sun and simoon have made it a desert. To lie upon 
its burning sands and dream of the sweltering hosts 
that fought around the spot ; to bask in the cool shades 
of its olives and cedars, and think of Gethsemane and 
the sweets of Sharon ; to stand on the summit of the 
Mount of Olives, Carmel, or Hermon, and realize the 
almost overwhelming fact that before him were the 
plains, hills, valleys, conquered and reconquered since 
man was made, and which were peopled by the great, 
the good, the wild, and the bloodthirsty of every 
asre ; to recog^nize the localities where dwelt or fous^ht 
the heroes of Holy Writ ; to feel the presence of the 
King of kings as " on mysterious wings " he swept 
the plain and shielded his people ; to walk on the 
very path whereon the Son of God had often placed 
his feet ; to dream in the starlight of Apostles, priests, 
Romans, Crusaders, and Saracens, was an experience 
especially gratifying to him, and interesting to a 
greater or less degree to all travellers. The writer 
recalls, perhaps in an imperfect form, a verse which 
Mr. Taylor Avrote during his stay in Palestine, and 
which came to the writer with singular force while 
carelessly wandering along the valley between Jerusa- 
lem and the Mount of Olives. 



THE HOLY LAND. 185 

" Thy strength, Jersualem, is o'er, 

And broken are thy walls ; 
The harp of Israel sounds no more 

In thy deserted halls : 
But where thy Kings and Prophets trod, 

Triumphant over death, 
Behold the living soul of God, — 

The Christ of Nazareth ! 
The halo of his presence fills 

Thy courts, thy ways of men ; 
His footsteps on thy holy hills 

Are beautiful as then ; 
The prayer, whose bloody sweat betrayed 

His human agony, 
Still haunts the awful olive-shade 

Of old Gethseman«." 

To him the past was real. He saw the fields of 
corn, the ancient olive-trees, the high walls, and the 
high towers, upon which the Saviour looked. He 
saw again Abraham, Samuel, Saul, David, Isaiah, 
Jeremiah, Pilate, and their associates. He walked in 
imagination in the welcoming crowd as they strewed 
the branches along the path from Bethany to Jerusa- 
lem. He saw the council chamber, the cross, and the 
ascension. He dreamed of the gathering armies at 
Antioch and Joppa, whose banners at last waved over 
the palace of Godfrey of Bouillon in Jerusalem. To 
him the gates of history swung wide open, and he 
wandered back through the centuries, meeting patri- 
arch and maiden, shepherd and warrior, prophet and 
judge, seer and apostle, in a companionship social and 
confidential. It was like long generations of experi- 



186 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

ence to walk those hallowed fields and realize the 
wonderful tales of history. In this, as much as in the 
views of the present, is found the profit resulting from 
travel in such lands. One lives over the tales of 
which he has read, with each locality serving as a 
fresh reminder of the unnoted details. He is an old 
man in experience who has travelled in the right spirit 
over those eldest lands of the world ; and few indeed 
is the number of tourists who can feel that they havt 
done so. 

Mr. Taylor, like Longfellow, Tennyson, and Scott, 
had a gift of looking through the present into the past, 
and held delightful communion with the old days. Try- 
ing, however, with a laudable desire to instruct his 
readers, he kept studiously close to the simple facts of 
his actual experience, and in his narrative seldom 
allowed himself to fall into poetical expressions. 

He left Egypt about the middle of the month of 
April and landed at Beyrout, which was not at that 
time, nor since, a very attractive locality. It was 
made more unpleasant to him by an incarceration in a 
kind of prison called the "Quarantine." But with a 
resignation worthy of the oldest Turk, he made the 
best of his circumstances, and judging by the account 
he has given of it, he had an easy, jolly time of it 
Released from the prison he travelled down the shore 
of the Mediterranean to Tyre, with whose remnant he 
seems to have been deeply impressed. The old Tyre, 
with its fleets, with its enormous stocks of merchan- 



AT TYRE. 187 

dise, with its lofty piles of cedar timber, with its 
gorgeous purple robes, with its bulwarks and battle- 
ments, with its armed defenders and hosts of besieg- 
ers, arose from its crumbled fragments and passed 
through the panoramic changes which so startle the 
student of Syrian history. 

After leaving the village which now replaces the 
ancient city, he rode down the sandy shore and com- 
posed a poem which was afterwards somewhat changed, 
but in which was retained the boldness of the waves, 
which then beat at his feet. 

" The wild and windy morning is lit with lurid fire ; 
The thundering surf of ocean beats on the rocks of Tyre, — 
Beats on the fallen columns and round the headland roars, 
And hurls its foamy volume along the hollow shores, 
And calls with angry clamor, that speaks its long desire : 
' Where are the ships of Tarshish, the mighty ships of Tyre ? ' 

Within her cunning harbor, choked with invading sand, 
No galleys bring their freightage, the spoils of every land, 
And like a prostrate forest, when autumn gales have blown. 
Her colonnades of granite lie shattered and o'erthrown ; 
And from the reef the pharos no longer flings its fire. 
To beacon home from Tarshish the lordly ships of Tyre." 

•^ Where is the wealth of ages that heaped thy princely mart! 
The pomp of purple trappings ; the gems of Syrian art ; 
The silken goats of Kedar ; Sabaea's spicy store ; 
The tributes of the islands thy squadrons homeward bore, 
When in thy gates triumphant they entered from the sea 
With sound of horn and sackbut, of harp and psaltery." 

** Though silent and forgotten, yet Nature still laments 
The pomp and power departed, the lost magnificence : 



188 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

The liills were proud to see thee, and they are sadder now; 
The sea was proud to bear thee, and wears a troubled brow, 
And evermore the surges chant forth their vain desire : 
' Where are the ships of Tarshish, the mighty ships of Tyre ? ' " 

One of the most sublime experiences of life is to 
stand wliere he stood, with the great waves rolling up 
the beach and shaking the earth with their powerful 
surges, and with the spray breaking about the dark 
ruins of the ancient city, and there repeat the poem 
from which the above verses are taken. It gives 
power and life to the words which can never be felt or 
seen by those who have never heard the bellowings or 
felt the shocks of the Mediterranean surf. 

From Tyre he ascended Mount Carmel, and follow- 
ing the shore to JaiFa, took the usual route to Jerusa- 
lem. It was the most pleasant season of the year 
(April), and all vegetation was fast springing into its 
bountiful life. The cactus, orange, and pomegranate 
were in bloom, and all nature seemed in its most 
cheerful mood. So like a paradise did it look to him, 
that it was some little time before he could get into that 
frame of mind which brought a realization that he was 
in that land of great renown. But as that thrilling 
moment arrived when he stepped upon the highest 
plateau of the mountains near Jerusalem and looked 
with astonished eyes over the valley and on the " City 
of our God and the mountain of his holiness," he felt, 
with a sudden thrill, that he was in the presence of 
the Great and the Holy. With emotions that cannot 



AT JERUSALEM. 189 



be described he rode over those sacred fields and 
entered the gates of the city. 

From Jerusalem he made an excursion, by the way 
of Bethany, to the Dead Sea. It was a sultry day, 
and he suffered much from the heat, having therein a 
suggestion of the rain of fire and brimstone which 
destroyed the cities whose ruins are supposed to be 
petrified at the bottom of the Dead Sea. With his 
usual hardihood he plunged fearlessly into the bitumi- 
nous waters of the Dead Sea, and seemed to enjoy what 
no traveller who has since indulged in that bath is 
iinown to have enjoyed, the buoyance of the water and 
the sensations caused by the volcanic materials held in 

solution. 

On his return to the city he remained for several 
days examining the sacred localities and contending 
with the crowds of beggars and guides who blocked 
the narrow and filthy streets of Jerusalem. The 
wretchedness, poverty, disease, and filth of the people 
are so prominent and so loathsome, that unless the 
ordinary traveller keeps constantly on his guard, he 
will forget all the old and holy associations in his dis- 
gust for the city of to-day. It is said that the city 
•'s less dirty and less stricken with disease than it was 
in 1850. If such be the fact, it is a marvel indeed how 
Mr Taylor ever found a fit place for his Muse, which 
=0 frequently visited him there. He seems, however, 
to have been deeply interested in everything, having 
ftbout as little taitb in what the guides told him about 



190 LIFE OF BAYAKD TAYLOR. 

the locality of the Holy Sepulchre, Calvary, Geth- 
semane, and the true cross, as travellers in more mod- 
ern times appear to entertain. Jerusalem was not 
only all that we have represented it to be outwardly, 
but the people would lie beyond the fables of any other 
people ; would steal and would murder. To be much 
troubled hy these facts would destroy the poetry of the 
place, and Mr. Taylor allowed none of thpse things to 
move him. He wrote of the facts us he found them, 
uncolored by the imagination, and seems to have 
flattered himself that he was not as sentimental as the 
travellers who had preceded him. If he was so very 
practical, whence such beautiful poetry? 

" Fair shines the moon, Jerusalem, 

>,, 

Upon the hills that wore 
Thy glory once, their diadem 

Ere Judah's reign was o'er : 
The stars on hallowed Olivet 

And over Zion burn, 
But when shall rise thy splendor, set ? 

Thy majesty return ? " 

On the 7th of May he left Jerusalem, in company 
with another traveller and the mule-drivers, takinsr the 
route by way of Samaria to Nazareth through a 
country at that season covered with the richest and 
freshest foliage. Along the entire route the tourist 
seldom passes out of sight of broken columns, falling 
fortresses, gray old monasteries, dismal hermitages, 
and Roman masonry. The olive and fig trees shaded 



GOING TOWARDS DAMASCUS. 191 

the path, and with the wide fields of grain gave the 
appearance of thrift and enterprise. He visited She- 
chem, where it is said that Joseph was buried, and 
near which he was thrown into the pit by his brethren. 
There Mr. Taylor saw Samaritans of the original 
stock, and there he was shown an ancicLl; manuscript 
of Hebrew Law, said to be three thousand years old. 

He made a short stop at Nazareth and was shown 
where the mother of Christ had resided, the table 
from which Christ ate, and the school-room ( ?) in 
w^hich Christ is said to have been taught. 

Going thence he ascended Mount Tabor, as it was 
his custom to climb all the mountains he could 
reach, and then hastened on to the Sea of Galilee. 
There he swam in its crystal water, and visited the 
Mount of Beatitudes, Joseph's WvW, and Magadala, 
the home of Mary Magdalene. Passing Cesarea 
Philippi, and crossing the anti-Lebanon range of 
mountains in imminent danger of robbery and death 
from the rebellious tribes of Druses which inhabited 
that region, they came out on the afternoon of May 
19th in view of the lovely city of Damascus. 

Mr. Taylor made a sketch of himself as he appeared 
in his Eastern costume, while seated on an eminence 
that afternoon, overlooking the most ancient city in the 
world. Li one of the rooms of Mr. Taylor's lovely 
home of Cedarcroft there hangs a large painting, of 
considerable merit, and said to be an excellent por- 
trait, w^hich was executed by a friend from that sketch* 



192 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

It represents Mr. Taylor sitting in Oriental posture, 
on the mountain-side, with the domes, minarets, and 
embowered walls of Damascus on the distant plain. 
He always held that painting to be a treasure, con- 
necting him, as it did, with those scenes of early 
travel, and with the friend who made the painting, 
and with those who admired it. 

He Was delighted with Damascus. It was placed 
in the centre of a plain whereon grew in the greatest 
abundance all the fruits and all the varieties of leai 
and blossom known to the tropic zone. No other 
spot yet explored can boast such beautiful trees ; such 
a profusion of roses ; such blossoms of jessamine and 
pomegranate ; such loads of walnuts, figs, olives, apri- 
cots ; such luxuriant grasses, and such productive 
fields, as that land which has been cultivated by man 
the longest. Nature has set the crown upon Damas- 
cus and blessed it with a superabundance of vegetable 
life. But what is given to verdure seems to be taken 
from humanity, for, regarded as a whole, he found the 
people of the city to be a rather bad lot. Yet there, 
as elsewhere, he found agreeable companions and 
warm friends. He made himself so much at home that 
he soon appeared like a native, and all the labyrinths of 
bazars and alleys were as familiar to him after a few 
days' stay as they seemed to be to the oldest resident. 
He liked their life so well that he soon learned to enjoy 
to its full the physical comfort and mental rest of the 
Turkish bath. He ever after referred to the bath 



AT DAMASCUS. 193 

at Damascus as the acme of bodily satisfaction. Tlie 
fact that so many travellers have been disappointed in 
the enjoyment of the bath does not show Mr. Taylor's 
account to be so much overdrawn, as it shows the dif- 
ference between the pleasure to be derived from the 
pastimes of any people by those who adhere more or 
less to their own tastes and customs, and those who, 
like Mr. Taylor, fall wholly and heartily into the ways 
and thoughts of the native. When in Damascus, he 
not only did as they do outwardly, but he set his mind 
in the same channel, and knew what it was to be a 
Turk in aspirations as well as in dress. No other 
traveller known to literature ever entered so com- 
pletely into the experience and social companionship 
of the people whom he visited. 

In order that he might leave no habit untried which 
came within his reach, he took a potion of hashish, to 
test its strength and effects. The drug did not begin 
to intoxicate him quite as soon as he expected, and 
he doubled the dose, thus taking six times as much as 
would intoxicate an ordinary Turk. It made him 
terriby ill ; and it was almost miraculous that he sur- 
vived the shock to his system. He did not try the 
strength of that drug again. Among the friends he 
made, and whose home he visited at Damascus, was a 
family of Maronite Christians, who, eight years later, 
were heinously butchered by the Moslems during the 
great massacre following the Druses' and Marnoites' 
dispute in 1860. 

u 



194 LIFE OF BAYAKD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Leaviug Damascus. — Arrival at Beyrout. — Trip to AJeppo. — En- 
ters Asia Minor. — The Sceuery and People. — TLe Hills of Leb- 
anon. — Beautiful Scenes about Brousa. — Enters Constantino- 
ple. — A Prophesy. — Return to Smyrna. — Again in Italy. — 
Visits his German Friend at Gotha. — The Home of his Second 
Love. — Goes to London. — Visits Gibraltar. — Cadiz. — 
Seville. — Spanish History. 

" Upon the glittering pageantries 
Of gay Damascus streets I look 
As idly as a babe, that sees 
The painted pictures of a book." 

— Taylor^ 8 Oriental hhjl. 

From Damascus Mr. Taylor journeyed to Baalbec, 
where are the most imposing ruins to be found in 
Syria, and where stand six of the most symmetrical 
and exquisitely carved columns to be seen in Asia or 
Europe. He described tlie temples and fragments so 
vividly, that travellers who have taken his " Lands of 
the Saracen " for a guide have seldom been disappointed 
or mistaken in their anticipations, the actual scene 
they look upon being so like the image they formed in 
their minds while reading his description. The gift 
of portraying through the combination of words and 
sentences an accurate picture of a city existing in a 



BAALBEC AND LEBANON. 195 

strange land and amid a strange people, is a rare gift, 
and the number is very few of those who are found to 
possess it. Mr. Taylor was one of those privileged 
ones. In his description we see the columns, cornices, 
pediments, walls, platforms, broken pillars, and falling 
pavilions as distinctly as they appear when we after- 
wards look upon those romantic piles with the natural 
eye. To him, as to others, it was a study to deter- 
mine, if possible, how such enormous blocks of stone, 
sixty-two feet long and ten feet in diameter, could 
have been transported and placed in the buildings. 
It is bej^oud all the skill of to-day to move nine thou- 
sand tons of stone in a single block with the conven- 
iences of that time. 

From Baal bee he ascended the Lebanon range of 
mountains, and looked over the land from the snowy 
peak of one of its lofty summits. He visited the 
sacred cedars which have lived on the mountain-side 
for three thousand years, and then rode on through 
chasms, along clifis, and hy the sweetest and richest 
dells, until he descended to the plain of Bcyrout. 

His appreciation of the hills of Lebanon is more 
clearly seen in his poetry than in his prose. For^ 
when writing of them afterwards, he said : — 

'Lebanou, thou mount of story, 
Well we know thy sturdy glory, 

Since the days of Solomon; 
Well me know the Five old Cedars, 
Scarred by ages, — silent pleaders, 



J 96 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Praaching in their gray sedatcness, 
Of thy forest's falleu greatness, 
Of the vessels of the Tyrian 
And the palaces Assyrian 
And the temple on Moriah 

To the High and Holy One ! 
Know the wealth of thy appointment — 
Myrrh and aloes, gum and ointment ; 
Bat we knew not, till we clomb thee, 
Of the nectar dropping from thee, — 
Of the pure, pellucid Ophir 
111 the cups of vino d'oro, 

On the hills of Lebanon ! " 

In that city he laid his plans for the future, and 
abandoned his purposed trip to the Euphrates and 
Tigris. He relinquished the design to visit Assyria 
with great reluctance, and decided to pass through the 
interior of Asia Minor to Constantinople. Acting 
immediately upon this resolution, without an apparent 
doubt of being able to traverse safely the unknown 
interior of Asia Minor, he engaged a vessel and sailed 
up the coast to the Orontes River, and thence to Aleppo. 
In that city, by a ludicrous mistake, Mr. Taylor and 
his travelling companion were invited to the house of 
one of the wealthiest merchants, and were treated with 
the greatest hospitality by the owner, who supposed 
they were titled Englishmen. But when the mistake 
was revealed, Mr. Taylor had become such an agreeable 
visitor that his host insisted upon entertaining them 
during their stay in Aleppo. He had been there but 
a few days before he became such a general favorite, 



TAURUS MOUNTAINS. 197 

that he was invited to call on the nobility, was urged 
to attend feasts, balls, and weddings, and when he left 
the city, the friendly regrets of hundreds of Moslems 
and Christians followed him. 

Leaving Aleppo early in June, he followed the 
shore of the Mediterranean around to the plain of Issus, 
where Alexander the Great won his great victory, and 
thence to Tarsus, the birthplace of the Apostle Paul. 
It may have been " no mean city " when Paul was born, 
but it was a most insignificant village when Mr. Tay- 
lor was there. But as the magnificent mountains of 
the Taurus range loomed up along the northern horizon, 
his attention was taken from rags, beggary, and ruined 
fortresses, to snowy cliffs, over which he had a passion 
for clambering. 

Those persons who have ascended the Alps at the 
Simplon pass, have a very good idea of the Taurus 
mountains, and can realize somewhat of Mr. Taylor's 
satisfaction as he rode up the gorges and peered into 
the deep valleys. He loved the mountains anywhere. 
But the Taurus seemed then, in the glow of his return 
to perfect health and with all .the profusion of nature's 
living beauties blooming about him, and the eternal 
snows gleaming above him, to be the most attractive 
landscape in the world. 

" O deep, exulting freedom of the hills! 
O summits vast, that to the climbing view, 
In naked glory stand against the blue ! 
O cold and buoyant, lir, whose crystal fills 



198 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Heaven's amethystine bowl ! O speeding streams, 

Tliat foam and thunder from the cliffs below ! 

O slippery brinks and solitudes of snow, 

And granite bleakness, where the vulture screams ! " 

His visit to Konia ( Iconium ), the capital of Kara- 
mania, was full of little episodes and personal incidents, 
which he told afterwards in print in his own inimitable 
manner. But nothing of unusual moment occurred 
.uitil he reached ancient Phrygia, where the ruins of 
olden cities and fortresses interested him much. Their 
history was almost as nnknown as the story of the 
temples of Yucatan, and consequently had a mysterious 
appearance which charms in a bewildering way the 
study of a poet. 

Kiding on over hills and mountains, across delightful 
streams, through fertile valleys, associating with the 
Turks on friendly terms, and studying their habits and 
language, Mr. Ta3dor pushed fearlessly into the very 
heart of Asia Minor. Visiting Oezani in its debris, 
and the valley of Rhyndacus, they traversed the pri- 
meval forests on the INIysian Olympus, and true to his 
instincts he sought the heights of Olympus, twin moun- 
tain, in size and literature, with its Grecian namesake. 
From that point to Brousa, near the Sea of Marmora, it 
was but a day's journey, and seems to have been the 
most delightful ride of the whole tour. Gardens, 
orchards, grain-fields, thickets of clematis and roses, 
patches of beech and oak woodland, and brilliant streams 
pleased the eye, while the songs of birds and of happy 



CONSTAKTINOPLE. 191) 

harvesters charmed the ear. Grand mountains pierced 
the skies, covered with dense forests, behind them, and 
the plain stretched away — a Garden of Eden — to 
the shore of a placid inland sea. 

They entered Brousa in excellent health and spirits, 
having seen no unusual fatigue and been in no great 
danger during the whole journey through a country 
then almost lost and unknown to the civilized world. 

From Brousa, the party descended to the Sea of 
Marmora, and taking a sail-boat were wafted by the 
Golden Horn into the interminable fleets of Constan- 
tinople. During his stay in that city he witnessed the 
display of the Turkish holidays, saw the Sultan on his 
throne, entered the mosque of Saint Sophia, ran to the 
numerous conflagrations, and unravelled to his satisfac- 
tion some of the social and political pro])1ems con- 
nected with the Sultan's rule and the state of popular 
discontent. He foretold a war with Russia, and a 
contest betv/een the latter and England over the cov- 
eted gem of the East and the gate to the Black Sea. 
His predictions have already been proven to be true, 
showing an insight into political aff'airs wholly un- 
looked for in a young man, and not to be found in 
such as had travelled to less purpose. 

On leaving Constantinople, he proceeded again to 
Smyrna, which place appeared to so much better 
advantage on his second visit than it did at bis first, 
that instead of leaving it, as before, with anathemas, 
he celebrated his visit with a poem. 



200 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

" The ' Ornament of Asia ' and the * Crown 
Of fair Ionia.' Yea, but Asia stands 
No more an empress, and Ionia's hands 
Have lost their sceptre. Thou, majestic town, 
Art as a diamond on a faded robe." 

The reader may not need to be again reminded of 
Mr. Taylor's double view of the scenes he visited, or 
of the fact that he tried to give faithful pictures of the 
present in his prose and left the ideal and fanciful to 
his books of j)oetry. But to understand his disposi- 
tion, and correctly estimate his ability, they need to 
be read together; and hence, before taking leave of 
Asia Minor, we venture to quote a verse from a dedi- 
cation to his friend Eichard H. Stoddard, which we 
have seen in a volume of Mr. Taylor's poems. 

" O Friend, were you but couched on Tmolus' side, 
In the warm myrtles, in the golden air 
Of the declining day, which half lays bare, 

Half drapes, the silent mountains and the wide 

Embosomed vale, that wanders to the sea ; 
And the far sea, with doubtful specks of sail, 

And farthest isles, that slumber tranquilly 
Beneath the Ionian autumn's violet veil ; — 

Were you but with me, little were the need 
Of this imperfect artifice of rhyme. 
Where the strong Fancy peals a broken chime 

And the ripe brain but sheds abortive seed. 

But I am solitary, and the curse. 
Or blessing, which has clung to me from birth — 

The torment and the ecstasy of verse — 
Comes up to me from the illustrious earth 

Of ancient Tmolus ; and the very stones, 



visits GOTSA. 201 

Reverberant, din the mellow air with tones 
Which the sweet air remembers ; and they blend 
With fainter echoes, which the mountains fling 
From far oracular caverns : so, my Friend, 
I cannot choose but sing." 

At Constantinople Mr. Taylor heard of the action 
which had been taken by the United States, looking to 
the opening of the ports of Japan to the commerce of 
America. He heard that a squadron was to leave the 
United States in November, under the command of 
Commodore Perry, and he formed the resolution to 
connect himself with the expedition, if possible. To 
that end he wrote to his friends and employers in New 
York, asking them to obtain permission for him to join 
the fleet. Not knowing just when the expedition 
would sail, nor at what ports it would stop on its way 
to Japan, he anxiously w\atched for information, and 
inquired at every place where information was likely 
to be found. 

He was determined to visit Spain before he went to 
China and Japan, and w^as equally resolved to visit 
the home of his German travelling companion who 
ascended the Nile with him, and who had sent press- 
ing invitations to him to come to Gotha. 

The business details connected with his finances and 
outfit for Spain and China also called him to London, 
and arranging his tour so as to accomplish these 
diverse ends he visited Malta, where he was delayed 
ten days, and then sailed to Sicily, where he witnessed 



202 rjFR OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

the Catanian centennial festival in honor of St. 
Agatha, and where he beheld the awful spectacle of 
^tna in eruption. From Sicily he sailed up the coast 
to that Naples which, as a wayfarer in Rome seven 
years before, he had so much longed to see, and filled 
his letters with praises of its beautiful bay and charm- 
mg circle of mountain, city, town, cliffs, and islands. 
Without changing steamers he proceeded to Leghorn, 
and going to Florence experienced that delight of all 
delights, — in Florence a second time. Feeling that 
his time was limited, and " drawn by an unseen influ- 
ence," he hastened on to Venice, and thence through 
the regions of the Austrian Tyrol to Munich and 
Gotha. 

Gladsome days at Gotha ! Was it not the country 
of his beloved friend? Was it not the home of his 
friend's niece, Marie Hansen? The daughter of the 
gi-eat astronomer, Peter Andreas Hansen, was a worthy 
child of a noble sire. Mr. Taylor had listened to lier 
praises, but had hardly hoped to meet her. 

" Now the night is overpast, 
And the mist is cleared away : 
On my barren life at last 
Breaks the bright, reluctant day." 

" Quick, fiery thrills, which only are not pangs 
Because so warm and welcome, pierce my frame, 
As were its airy substance suddenly 
Clothed on with flesh ; the ichor in my veins 
Begins to redden with the pulse of blood. 



FRO^I GOTHA TO S^AIV. 203 

And, from the recognition of the eyes 
That now behold me, something I receive 
Of man's incarnate beauty. Thou, as well 
Confessest this bright change : across thy cheeks 
A faintest wild-rose color comes and goes, 
And, on thy proud lips, Phyra, sits a flame ! 
Oh, we are nearer ! — not suffice me now 
The touch of marble hands, reliance cold, 
And destiny's pale promises of love ; 
But, clasping thee as mortal passion clasps 
Bosom to Bosom, let my being thus 
Assure itself, and thine." 

—Taylor^ 8 iJcnkalion. 

After a few weeks spent in and about that pleasant 
city, to which he was destined to return and claim his 
bride, and in which he was to pass many of the sweet- 
est days of his life, he journeyed to London. There 
he made his arrangements for a trip into China, and 
hastened away to Gibraltar. 

On the 6th of November he left the great rock and 
took passage in a steamer for Cadiz, in Spain. There 
he walked the streets three thousand years old, and 
wherein, it is said, that Hercules strode. Yet there is 
l)ut little now to be seen that would remind one of an- 
tiquity. He noticed, however, the beautiful and graceful 
women. From Cadiz he went by boat up the Guad- 
alquiver Kiver to the pretty town of Seville. There 
were the old Moorish houses ; there the massive Cathe- 
dral ; there the Saracenic palace of AlcMzar, with all 
its porches, galleries, arches, and sculptures: there 
was the palace called Pilate's House, with its decora- 



204 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

tions from Arabia, and inscriptions from the Koran ; 
and there was the museum containing Murilio's best 
paintings. 

But it requires only a short time to visit all the 
attractions of Seville, and Mr. Taylor soon proceeded 
to Granada. In nearly all the cities which he visited 
he was reminded, directly or indirectly, of the visit of 
his friend, Washington Irving. He found the same 
guides, or lodged at the same hotel, or visited some 
celebrated locality of which Irving had written. 

In Granada was the celebrated fortress of Alham- 
bra, which was captured from the Moors by the troops 
of Ferdinand and Isabella the same year that Colum- 
bus discovered America ; there was the palace of 
Charles Y. ; there the Carthusian convent, the Monas- 
tery of St. Geronimo, and there thjs cathedral with the 
remains of Ferdinand and Isabella. He made a hasty 
trip to Cordova and its ancient Moslem mosque. 
Then, visiting Albania, Malaga, and Ronda, he returned 
hastily to Gibraltar and examined the renowned fort- 
ress, said to be the strongest citadel in the world. 

In that somewhat hasty view of Southern Spain he 
obtained much valuable information and an experience 
which often served him in his literary work as a 
writer for the public press. Southern Spain and 
Southern France, next to Kome itself, are replete with 
warlike and romantic associations. Gauls, Romans, 
Moors, and Spaniards, have made nearly every plain a 
battle-field ; and the toppling walls of the ancient tow- 



SOUTHERN SPAIN. 205 

ers and palaces tell of the fiercest contests, the most 
terrible inquisitions, and the narrowest of narrow 
escapes. Song and story in prose and rhyme have 
combined in every form to make the land attractive, 
and it is a matter of deep regret that Mr. Taylor, who 
was so capable of developing all these characteristics, 
had not more time in which to visit them and write 
out his experience. 



20() LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOU. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Leaves Gibraltar for Alexandria. — Egyi^t and Old Friends. — The 
Towu of Suez. — Embarks for Bombay. — Mocha and its Cof- 
fee. — Adeu. — Arrival in Bombay. — Reception by the People. — 
Trip to Elephanta. — Ride into the Interior. — Difficulties of 
the Journey. — Views of Agra. — Scenes about Delhi. — Starts 
for the Himalaya Mountains. 

" Where is Gulistan, the Land of Roses ? 
Not on hills, where Northern winters 
Break their spears in icy splinters, 
And in shrouded snow the world reposes f 
But amid the glow and splendor. 
Which the Orient summers lend her, 
Blue the heaven above her beauty closes: 
There is Gulistan, the Land of Roses. 

Northward stand the Persian mountains ; 
Southward spring the silver fountains. 
Which to Hafiz taught his sweetest measures. 
Clearly ringing to the singing, 
Which the nightingales delight in, 
When the Spring, from Oman winging 
Unto Shiraz, showers her fragrant treasures 
On the land, till valleys brighten." 

— Taylor. 

By far the most interesting and valuable part of Mr. 
Taylor's experience as a traveller was in India, China, 
and Japan, if we consider only the welfare of his 
readers. But so far as its influence upon him waa 



STARTS FOU INDIA. 207 

concerned, its impression was far less marked than 
that in Europe and Egypt. At tlie time he left Gibral- 
tar for Egypt, the lands of India, China, and Japan 
were comparatively little known to the reading commu^ 
nities in America. Even India, which had so long 
been the idol of England and the El Dorado for all her 
adventurous spirits and valorous soldiers, was a coun 
try with which America had but little communication 
and in whose people Americans took but little interest 
It was a neglected field. 

Mr. Taylor, in a letter to a friend in Washington, 
laid much stress upon the importance to American 
commerce of an accurate description of those lands, 
and hoped to be the instrument by which an interest 
in such enterprises might be awakened. It was a 
laudable, patriotic purpose, and was most conscien- 
tiously carried out by him. 

He left Gibraltar on the 28th of November, on a 
Peninsular and Oriental steamer, which touched at that 
port, on its way from Southampton to Alexandria. He 
arrived at Alexandria December 8, and sought his old 
quarters in the city. He felt like one who returns to 
his home, as he walked the streets of the Egyptian 
city, and relates with evident satisfaction how pleasant 
it was to call out to the crowd of donkey-drivers in 
their native tongue. 

But his visit to Cairo gave him the keenest delight, 
as there he saw many familiar faces, and was greeted 
with many welcoming smiles. He was especially de- 



208 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

lighted to meet his faithful dragoman, Achmet, who 
had been his companion on his trip to the White Nile, 
and the happiness of the Egyptian on seeing his old 
employer told very impressively the power and virtue 
of Mr. Taylor's character. Men were faithful to him 
because he had faith in them. They loved him because 
he understood and appreciated them. Even the little 
donkey-boy on whose animal Mr. Taylor had rode a 
year before in one of his reckless canters through the 
bazaars, remembered him and offered to let him ride 
again without pay — an act unheard of by other trav- 
ellers there. It could not be otherwise than sweet to 
travel in any land where the people were friends and 
where the wanderer was regarded in the light of an 
especially intelligent relative. 

At that date there were no railroads in Egypt, 
although one was projected, and Mr. Taylor was com- 
pelled, in common with the crowd of other travellers, 
to ride in a cart, eighty-four miles, through the sandy 
desert, to Suez. The latter town was then, according 
to Mr. Taylor's account, a small, dirty, insignificant 
place. But the writer, who visited the place after a 
visit to Japan, China, and India, in 1870, found a very 
prosperous town, with excellent hotel accommodations. 
The bazaar was large and stocked with an immense 
quantity of goods from all parts of the civilized world. 
It has doubtless grown much since the work was begun 
on the Suez Canal, and since the harbor has been 
dredged and the wharves constructed. 



THE RED SEA. 209 

His stay in Suez was, however, very brief, as the 
Mediterranean steamer had arrived much behind time, 
and consequently all were hurried on board the little 
tug, and soon walked the deck of an India steamer. 

They were on the Red Sea ! Now that its ban-en, 
sandy shores, the home of the pelican and ostrich, 
have become so familiar to tourists, and its glaring 
surface been so often mentioned by correspondents, 
there is less romance about a voyage from Suez to 
Aden than in that comparatively early day when Mr. 
Taylor visited the locality. There was the rugged 
pass on the west, through which the pillar of fire led 
the escaping Jews to the shore, and there was the 
beach and highlands on the east, up which they 
marched dry-shod from the bed of the sea, while the 
waves rolled in on the hosts of Pharaoh. There was 
the hill on which Miriam sang so exultingly ; and 
beyond, the hot peaks of the Sinaitic Wilderness. 
Somewhere in the vicinity of that sea resided the 
Queen of Sheba ; and not far from its shores were 
the forgotten mines of ancient Ophir. 

But Mr. Taylor felt now that a patriotic duty rested 
upon him, and avoiding the delicious flights of fancy 
which pleased him so much in Europe, he devoted 
liimself to the practical things which might be of 
advantage to his ambitious countrymen. So he told 
about the sailors who were employed on the steamer, 
where Hindoos did all the drudgery and Chinamen 
prepared the food, under the direction of Europeans. 



210 LIFE OF BAVAllD TAYLOR. 

He described the character of the passengers, telliug 
where each came from and where they were going. 
How he ascertained these facts is an enigma ; but they 
were important to commercial people who would com- 
pete with the established lines, and who would like to 
know whom to employ and who would be tlicir pa- 
trons. There were physicians, soldiers, officers, mer- 
chants, and health-seekers, from each of whom Mr. 
Taylor managed to gain much information. He did 
not wait, like the fashionable tourist of this day, until 
he arrived at his destination, trusting to luck for infor- 
mation and accommodation. He closely studied the 
country before he arrived there, and frequently aston- 
ished his guides and native companions by showing a 
mucli more accurate and extensive knowledge of their 
country than they possessed who had lived there all 
their lives. 

He mentioned the hot red hills and the furnace-like 
surface of the sea, saying that one part of the Red Sea 
was the hottest part of the earth's surface. But he 
appears to have suffered less than he had in the desert, 
and was quite happy with his biscuit and claret, and 
lost no time with useless fans. 

He saw Mocha from the deck of the steamer, and 
immediately set about ascertaining what advantages 
*;hat port and town offered to commerce. Without 
It^iVing the deck he found persons who knew all about 
Arabia and its products ; so he sits down and writes a 
letter about coffee and its culture in and about Mocha. 



AT ADEN. 21] 

He was such a devoted lover of coffee that it may have 
been a peculiarly interesting topic to him. At all 
events, he wrote so intelligently that an old school- 
mate, who was engaged in foreign trade, acted profitably 
on Mr. Taylor's hints and started a son in the coffee- 
trade at Baltimore. Mr. Taylor stated in his letter that 
fifteen thousaud tons of coffee were exported annually 
from Mocha, it being raised in the interior and brought 
to Mocha on camels. He said that foreign vessels 
could best load at Aden, the English stronghold on 
the south-west coast of Arabia, to which port the native 
coasting vessels carried nearly all the exports of Mocha 
and of the other small ports along the Red Sea. He 
also gave the information that equally good coffee 
could be obtained on the Abyssinian coast, and at a 
smaller price. 

He entered the port of Aden in the night, and was 
startled to look out on the port in the morning and see 
such jagged masses of black rock shooting up from 
the sand one thousand five hundred feet. It is another 
Gibraltar, and shrewdly has England held by diplo- 
macy what she obtained by such a show of force. But 
the heat from the sand and barren rocks is so intense 
that the quivers of a heated atmosphere are always 
visible, and very injurious to the eyes. At the time 
of Mr. Taylor's visit, the town and the harbor were 
wretched and dangerous ; but in 1870 the writer 
found a neat village, with good hotels, and a spacious 
wharf. Mr. Taylor saw the advantages of the port 



212 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

and predicted its growth. He mentioned the form, 
featm-es, and dispositions of the Arabians ; and told 
what interest the Parsees and Hindoos took in the 
local trade. He mentioned the articles of commerce 
to be found there, and gave the prices. 

There is not to be found in his letters to the 
"Tribune," nor in his book, "India, China, and 
Japan," any mention of his sensations when he saw, 
as he did at Aden, a fire-worshipper (Parsee) for the 
firot time. Being a poet by nature, and an admirer of 
Moore, he must have been fascinated by the actual 
presence of a Gheber with whom he could converse, 
and with whom he could change English money into 
the coin of the country. How " Lalla Rookh " conies 
to the tongue's end when we look a fire-worshipper in 
the face and recognize the picture Moore had given of 
him ! 

At Aden Mr. Taylor witnessed an incident which, 
to one so broadly charitable and Christian, must have 
been most revolting. One of the workmen, Avho had 
been loading the steamer with coal, was asleep in the 
hold when the vessel started, and the officers finding 
him aboard after they had put to sea, forced the poor 
native overboard and left him to float ashore with the 
tide or perish in the waves. He whose land was 
the world, whose brethren were all mankind, whose 
friends were the humblest heathen as well as the titled 
official, looked back at the dark speck on the waves, 
and tears filled his eyes. 



AT BOMBAY. 213 



From Aden, the steamer entered upon its trip across 
the Indian Ocean, which was true to its reputation, and 
was placid and peaceful as an inland lake. But the slow 
st^.amer took nine days to sail from Suez to Bombay ; 
and by the time Mr. Taylor was brought into view of 
the mountains where Brahma and Vishnu had so long 
been worshipped, he had become acquainted with 
nearly all the Hindoo sailors, and could secure unusual 
attendance from the waiters by addressing them in the 
Hindustanee language. He had learned the names of 
the principal streets of Boml)ay, the names of the 
richest merchants, and the kind of fare to be expected 
at the hotels. So naturally did he fall into the ways 
of the people that the boatmen who took him ashore 
at Bombay mistook him for an old resident and carried 
him ashore for one rupee, while charging the other pas- 
sengers three. He seated himself, or rather stretched 
himlelf, into a palanquin carried by four men, — one at 
each end of a long pole,-and like a native rode through 
the streets of Bombay on the necks of servants. But 
he did not enjoy that kind of conveyance ; he had too 
much sympathy with the human race to impose his 
weight on the necks of human beings without misgiv- 
ing^and he afterwards refused to be carried about in 
that way when mules were to be had. 

At Bombay, he was received with the same good- 
will and hospitality as he had found in other lands. 
Parsees, Hindoos, English, and Arabians vied with 
each other in giving him kindly attentions ; the peo- 



214 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOH. 

pie were pagau in religion, but Christian in generosity 
and charity. It l)roadens one's ideas of theology to be 
thrown inio communion with so many different nations 
with as many different gods. But its tendency is to 
confirm, rather than to unsettle, the belief in the 
Christian doctrines. At all events, such was Mr. Tay- 
lor's experience; and such has been the effect upon 
others. 

He found the common people very servile, and lack- 
ing in spirit, and attributed it to the long despotism. 
But in them he found faithful friends, and learned to 
respect them. They were nearly all pagans when he 
was there, and worshipped their huge red idols with a 
sincerity and self-sacrifice worthy of the highest pro- 
fession. In order to learn something of India in those 
remote ages beyond the testimony of history, and even 
back of the age of tradition, he vis^'ted the old temple 
on the island of Elephanta, iibout seven miles from 
Bombay. The massive structure, in partial ruin, so 
wonderfully wrought and massively constructed, made 
a deep impression upon his mind. Far, far back in the 
uncounted ages, the foundations were laid by men who 
were not low in the scale of civilization, if an idea of 
the beautiful and the ability to embody it in forms of 
stone be a test of enlightenment ; it stands to-day, 
defying time, as it has defied earthquakes and cannon- 
shot. Into the fathomless future will it pass, an 
immovable monument of the skill and art of man in 
the childhood of human experience. In the statuarj' 



ELEPHANT A. 



215 



Mr. Taylor fc and a sti mge resemblance to the three 
ages of art; liie b^-itue of Brahma representing the 
style of the Egyptian, Vishnu being represented in a 
form and carving of the Greek style, while Siva was 
cut from the stone in such a shape as to remind him of 
the Mephistopheles of the German school of sculpture. 

His keen scrutiny also developed the theory that 
the pillars were rough copies of the poppy-stem and 
the lotus-leaf. The latter was the emblem of sauctity 
in the days of Brahma. Mr. Taylor's suggestion has 
been attractively enlarged upon and illustrated within 
a few years by writers for English literary and art 
periodicals. 

No excursion from Bombay exceeds that to Ele- 
phanta in romantic attractions ; for there are not only 
extensive ruins of greater and lesser temples, but the 
landscape, wherein the greenest islands dot the sheen 
of a o-orgeous bay, is bright with most beautiful flow- 
ers and bright leaves, and the air is permeated with 
the odor of roses and cassia. Soon Elephanta will be 
a " summer resort," and Taylor's description and reflec- 
tions will be sold by newsboys as a guide-l)ook. 

At Bombay he visited the large mercantile establish- 
ments and investigated the prospects of trade ; saw the 
people in their homes, at meals, prayers, marriages, and 
funerals, and studied the work of the carpenters in that 
celebrated shipyard where was constructed the man- 
of-war wherein the Star-Spangled Banner was written. 
He knew all about the city as it was when he saw it, 



216 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

and as it had been from its Portuguese begmmng; 
and yet he remained but a single week. Who was the 
simpleton that circulated an unauthorized statement 
that Mr. Taylor travelled far and saw little ? In fact, 
he knew more of the needs and enterprise of Bombay 
than many old residents. 

In his haste to see as much of India as possible, and 
yet arrive in China in season to join Commodore Per- 
ry's expedition to Japan, he determined to ride in one 
of the mail carts of India a distance of nearly four 
hundred miles. His new friends advised him not to 
attempt the journey, and entertained him with the 
deeds of assassins and robbers along the route, and 
the results of the fatiguing ride of seven days and 
nights in a two- wheeled vehicle without springs or 
mattresses. But his mind was made up to go, and go 
he would. So, regardless of warnings and advice, he 
started into the interior in a cart with a driver and the 
"Koyal Mail." The traveller who now lounges in the 
hixuriant carriages of the railway trains Ijetween 
Bombay and Calcutta, can have no idea of the trials 
of such a journey as Mr. Taylor imdertook. Then, 
there were no railroads, no regular stages, even ; 
nothing but lumbering carts drawn by oxen and 
decrepit old horses. But he endured the fatigue with 
his usual fortitude and good fortune, while his already 
remarkable experience among hospitable people was 
repeated there in a most praiseworthy style. Friends, 
friends, everywhere ! Men divided their meals and 



IN INDIA. 217 

beds with him. People with whom he could converse 
by signs only, gave him food and pressed themselves 
into his service, and would take no pay. In one 
place a soldier sat up all night to give the weary trav- 
eller his bed. Surely, the essence of human kindness 
and charity is not confined to Christian lands ! 

Through jungles, where there was not a single path ; 
along highways, crowded with innumeral)le carts ; 
riding in wildernesses, where water was scarce, and 
food not to be found ; in every kind of vehicle known 
to the primitive people, from a horse chaise to a bul- 
lock-cart ; surrounded by miasmatic marshes, and the 
lairs of tigers, he hurried on toward Delhi. 

On his way he made a short stop at Agra and 
Futtehpoor-Sikra, where stand some of the mightiest 
and most costly temples which have been reared since 
the beginning of the Christian era. It well repays 
years of work and economy to wander among the 
palaces, mosques, and mausoleums of those great cities. 
No palace in all the world can be found to equal that of 
Akbar, the great Mogul, at Agra. AVhen Mr. Taylor 
visited the city, nearly all the rubbish, made by wars 
and sieges, had been cleared away, and the scarred 
walls and marred mosaics had been restored, so that 
he stood under mighty domes, amid all the splendor 
of the East. No one can imagine its beauty and 
grandeur, unless he has seen it. Such lofty arches ! 
such masses of pure white marble ! such a profusion 
of pearl, jasper, cornelian, agate, and many stones of 



218 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

greater beauty and value ! Such ex(|uisite carvings, 
such lovely mosaics, such labyrinths of inwrought 
balustrades and porticos ! Such tombs, so rich, so 
beautiful, so great, that the tomb of Napoleon in Paris 
is lost in comparison ! 

Mr. Taylor was delighted beyond measure by a visit 
to the tomb of the Empress Noor-Jehan, wife of the 
Shah Jehan. Moore uses her romantic history in his 
"Lalla Rookh," for verily she was "The Light of the 
Ilarem." Shah Jehan, " Selim," erected that marvel- 
lously beautiful building, with its lofty dome, and 
slender minarets, its inlaid jewels wherein the walls 
are made to hold a copy, in Arabic, of the whole 
Koran. Beautiful as Eastern songs represent Noor- 
Jehan to be, the tomb in which she lies must sur- 
pass her in whiteness and delicacy of outline. Never, 
in harem of Cashmere, nor in garden of IMogul, were 
there more delicious odors than those which still fill 
the air about her tomb. No brighter, more various, 
or more odorous flowers bloomed in Mahomet's Para- 
dise, than now bewilder the visitor to that hallowed 
spot. It was fortunate for i\Ir. Taylor that he had 
seen the boasted palaces and temples of Europe and 
Western Asia, before he visited that enchanted spot. 
Dreams of Aladdin became literal there. In tow- 
ers, arches, domes, colonnades, ceilings of pearl and 
precious stones, pillars wrought with the skilful 
jeweller's art, inlaid floors in which no crease appears, 
in diamond-like foundations, and in the unity of ita 



AT DELHI. 219 

unbroken sculptnrcs, the temples of Agra and of its 
suburbs, excel those of Venice and Florence, as the 
exquisite and angelic echoes in the dome of Queen 
Noor*s tomb excel, in length and sweetness, those of 
the Baptistry at Pisa. 

From Agra, he rode over the wide highway, ono 
hundred and fifteen miles, to Delhi, the former capital 
of the Moguls, and which, at that time, boasted the 
presence, in his palace, of Akl)ar II. There he wns 
treated with the same hospitality as he had been in 
other cities, and kind-hearted residents guided him 
about the streets of the modern city, and accompanied 
him to the magnificent ruins in various quarters of the 
plain whereon stood the old city. Pile on pile of 
massive columns lay in ragged majesty about him, and 
bewildered his senses with their unnumbered towers. 
Ruins, ruins, ruins, as far as the eye can trace the 
broken plain. Palaces, fortresses, temples, mosques, 
harems, tombte, obelisks, and massive battlements lie 
hurled together in undistinguished profusion, while 
here and there the porch of some lofty building, or 
some imposing arch, still breaks the line of the horizon. 
One pillar stands in the plain, whose summit is two 
hundred and forty feet above the ground. Near this 
gigantic shaft are the ruins of the palace of Aladdin. 
But the stone that cumber the plain, and the stable 
platform, once the floor, do not suggest the palace of 
diamonds, emeralds, pearls, gold, and ivory of which 
we have read ; and the beholder is tempted to believe 



220 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

that there was a mistake of location, and that Agra 
instead of Delhi, was the place after all. But Mr. 
Taylor, whose time was limited, could not linger long, 
nor hope to solve all the riddles which such an inex- 
haustible antiquarian museum suggested, and after 
visiting Hindoo temples, adorned with fascinating carv- 
ings and unintelligible inscriptions, and tombs cover- 
ing the remains of known and unknown monarchs, he 
hastened back to the modern city, with its wide Boule- 
vard, and made preparations to visit the Himalaya 
Mountains. 

He left that interesting city with great regret, for, 
to the poet, it suggested a very attractive place for 
fanciful dreams, and peaceful moralizing. Moore 
incorporated in his poem a Persian inscription, which 
was shown Mr. Taylor in the palace of Akbar II. : 
"If there be an Elysium on earth, it is here, it is 
here." And it might have been such an Elysium but 
for* the dilapidated, dirty condition of the palace, in 
which the motto was seen, which did not harmonize 
with the sentiment, and may have robbed the whole 
palace of its poetical attractions. 



THE HIMALAYAS. 221 



CHAPTER XXm. 

The Hiirialaya Mountains. — Returning Southward. — Lucknow and 
Calcutta. — Foretells the Great Rebellion. — Embarks for Chi- 
na. — Visit to the Mountains of Penang. — The Chinese at Sin- 
gapore. — Arrival at Hong-Kong. — Joins the Staff of the U. 
S. Commissioner. — Scenes about Shanghai. — The Nanking 
Rebellion. — Life in Shanghai. — Enlists in the Navy. — Com- 
modore Perry's Expedition. 

From Delhi Mr. Taylor travelled northward through 
a country well subjugated, which, under English direc- 
tion, was made fertile and safe for travellers. His 
way lay toward the summer resort of the invalids and 
wealthy Europeans, which lay far up in the Himalaya 
Mountains, where the snow never melted and where 
the hot, miasmatic winds of the plains cannot follow 
the fugitive. At Roorkee, while lying in his palanquin, 
he caught his first glimpse of the Himala^^as, and felt that 
crushing sense of awful sublimity which fills the soul of 
every new spectator. Towers that the arch of heaven 
seems to rest upon, white and gleaming as the purest 
pearl, rise one behind the other, until the farthest are lost 
in the haze of intervening space. Titanic pillars of snow, 
so grand, so mighty, so expressive of the most gigan- 
tic forces known or imagined by man, how can language 
convey their immensity ? It is useless to attempt it. 
For you ma^ talk, and talk, of mountains and the glo- 



222 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

rious sunsets that enamel them in roseate tints, yet 
no one will shed tears or feel a tremor of awe. But 
he who beholds them for the first time lets the tears 
unnoticed fall, and trembles as if thrust suddenly into 
the personal presence of the Almighty. Such a sense 
of humility, of abject unworthiness, takes possession 
of the beholder, that the soul labors heavily under the 
oppressive load, and the body shrinks from a nearer 
approach. There is nothing so powerful for driving 
atheism or egotism out of a man as the near view of 
the Himalayas or Andes or Rocky Mountains. The 
noblest races of the world have been reared in the wild 
regions of lofty mountains, and none so tenaciously 
revere their Maker, or so willingly sacrifice themselves 
for their friends or their God as the natives of the 
mountain passes. 

Mr. Taylor approached the highest range as near as 
the heights of Landowr, which is about sixty miles 
from the snowy peaks of the loftiest range, and is itself 
so high as to hold the snow the greater part of the 
year. There he saw the gorgeous illumination of those 
heavenly snow-fields, when the sun was setting and 
when it seems as if a universe was in a blaze, while its 
lurid glare shone full upon those stupendous monuments 
of the earthquake's titanic power. Mr. Taylor gazed 
upon those masses of the purest white, as twilight 
beoran to hide their outlines, and thouijht that, as he 
said in one of his lectures, " within three hundred 
miles of me are mightier mountains than these I " 



AT CAfOUxrA. 223 

Having seen the mountains and checked his old 
desire to stand on top of the highest one, he turned 
about and started southward for Calcutta, taking the 
fii-st day's journey on an elephant kindly loaned him 
by a new-found friend. He journeyed thence in the 
horse-carts of that time, via Meerut and Cawnpore, to 
Lucknow, where he was entertained in a most royal 
manner by the English officials. After examining that 
great metropolis of the interior, he hurried on to 
Benares and thence by quick relays to the great city 
of Calcutta. 

AVith a peculiar faculty for foreseeing the effect of 
certain influences on human nature, Mr. Taylor fore- 
told the approaching mutiny. He saw that the English 
treated the natives with habitual indignity. He saw 
that three-quarters of the earnings of the people was 
taken by the government. He saw that the English 
were in a great minority. He saw that the Sepoy 
reo^iments were o^ood soldiers. He saw that influential 
positions were held by dangerously powerful natives. 
And he declared that a rebellion was not only possible, 
but piT)bable. 

Four years later began that great rebellion among 
the natives, which became one of the bloodiest and 
crudest contests known in the annals of history. 
Chiefs and princes who received Mr. Taylor cordially 
during his visit, were afterwards executed for treason. 
Fortresses, temples, and cities, which he visited were 



224 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

shattered and torn by the shots of contending armies. 
Oppression and aristocratic pride resulted, as it natu- 
rally would, in horrid carnage and an impoverished 
treasury. Mr. Taylor's words of warning as they 
appeared in America, were probably never read in 
England, or if they were read, were scouted as the 
fears of one who did not understand the " permanency 
of a despotism." 

Although his stay was short in Calcutta, his descrip- 
tion of the people, the dwellings, the shipping, and 
social customs w^as one of the most clear and complete 
to be found in print. One who reads it sees the city, 
the river, the verdant plains, and the sea spread out 
before him, and becomes acquainted with the shop-keep- 
ers, police, Parsees, Arabs, Hindoos, Chinese, and 
Europeans, that made up the motley throngs. True to 
his patriotic purpose, he gave the commerce of the 
port such attention as the interests of our merchants 
required. 

From Calcutta he proceeded by an English steamer 
to Penang on the coast of the Malay Peninsula. It is 
a delightful locality, and is as beautiful in situation 
and vegetation as its clove and nutmeg trees are fra- 
grant. There again he gratified his taste for climbing 
a mountain, and spent nearly his whole time ascendkig 
to the signal station on the highest peak of the penin- 
sula. It was the only place he visited in which he 
left unseen the attractive nooks, grottos, waterfalls, 
and jungles, and chose instead the less interesting 



CHINESE AT SINGAPORE. 225 

experience. It was a source of regret to him after- 
ward, that he did not spend the few hours he had, in the 
lowlands and on the mountain-sides rather than at their 
tops. Every traveller who has visited Pcnang could 
detect the error. Yet, Mr. Taylor set down in his 
account of his visit more valuable information and a 
more graphic outline of the landscape than any travel- 
ler appears to have done, notwithstanding the beauti- 
ful falls of Penang are visited by thousands yearly. 

Accompanying the steamer in its usual route, Mr. 
Taylor stopped at Singapore, at the extreme southern 
end of the peninsula. It was a new port at that time, 
and was not so important as it afterwards became ; 
yet he found ten or fifteen thousand people there, 
mostly dirty and repulsive Chinese. Mr. Taylor was 
not pleased with the Chinese as a race, for two reasons. 
First, he heard such reports of their barbarity, beast- 
liness, and dishonesty ; second, they were an awkward, 
unsymmetrical people, devoid of that physical beauty 
which the artist admires and copies. He dwelt upon 
the latter fact in his letters, and mentioned it in his 
book. Neither Phidias, Poly crates, Raphael, or An- 
gelo would have selected a model from among these 
creatures, and naturally enough the artistic taste of 
Mr. Taylor was shocked by such natural deformities 
as the Chinese were, when looked upon with reference 
to the graceful and beautiful in the human form. It 
is but just to the Chinese as a nation to say that, 
according to the writer's experience among them, the 



226 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Coolies who emigrate to Singapore, Sydney, and Cali- 
fornia are by no means a fair sample of the educated 
and wealthy classes who remain at home and drive out 
the least useful and least intelligent portion. If one 
were to judge of the acquirements, ability, or physical 
beauty of the Chinese nation exclusively by the poor 
emigrants who cannot successfully compete w^ith their 
neighbors, and hence are compelled to go away from 
home for success, he would be nearly as sadly misled 
as one would be should he form his opinion of the 
American people by the inmates of their jails and 
poor-houses. There are many noble men and beauti- 
ful women in the interior of China, whether regarded 
mentally, morally, or physically. Mr. Taylor did not 
see them, and like a faithful scribe he wrote down only 
those things he saw, and knew to be true. The 
Chinese whom he saw in the ports engaged in unload- 
ing vessels, or doing like menial services, were not 
beautiful, and he said so. 

When Mr. Taylor arrived in Hong-Kong he was 
received with the same kind hospitality which his very 
countenance secured for him in every land. The 
United States Commissioner, the Hon. Humphrey 
Marshall, who happened to be at Macao, and whom 
Mr. Taylor met there on crossing the ba}^ from Hong- 
Kong, offered to attach Mr. Taylor to his staff, for a 
trip to the seat of war. The great rebellion in the 
Kiangsu province, lying north-westerly from Shanghai, 
had assumed such threatening proportions that the 



CHINESE REBELLION. 227 

emperor at Peking trembled on his throne. Exagger- 
ated accounts of the fiendish atrocities of the rebels, 
and rumors of great battles and successful sieges had 
reached the seaports, and even the peaceful American 
merchants at Shanghai feared capture and death. In 
view of all this, Mr. Taylor anticipated an exciting 
experience. Together with the whole ship's company, 
he felt, when the United States steamer left Hong- 
Kong for Shanghai, as if there was a measure of un- 
certainty if he ever returned. But the reports had 
been so much enlarged in their transmission to Hong- 
Kong, that when they arrived at the port of Shanghai 
they were delighted to find the place in no immediate 
danger of attack from the Chinese. In order to show 
the rebels that the Americans were neutral in all the 
Chinese quarrels, the Commissioner undertook the 
hazardous task of ascending the Yang-tse-kiang River 
to the beleaguered town of Nanking. It seems to 
have been a foolish undertaking, and viewed from 
any diplomatic standpoint, to have been indirectly an 
encouragement of the rebellion. It was not so in- 
tended, however, and Mr. Taylor did not give his 
opinion of the "good faith" which prompted the send- 
ing of envoys to a local rebellion in the interior of a 
"great and friendly nation." But what good sense 
could not do, the shoals and incompetency of the 
native pilots did accomplish ; and the Commissioner 
who was going up the river to pat the rebels on the 
back and ask them not to hurt their friends, the 



228 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Americans, was compelled to return to Shanghai. It 
would have been better for the United States if the 
second undertaking had been equally unsuccessful ; 
but as Mr. Taylor had no share in it, it is of no further 
importance here. 

While at Shanghai he experienced the sensation of 
being besieged without seeing an enemy. The fright- 
ened people organized themselves into military com- 
panies and drilled with the sailors. Breastworks were 
thrown up and cannon placed ready for action. The 
streets were patrolled and a guard kept over the pro- 
visions and ammunition. Tales of approaching hosts 
were freely circulated, and once the terrified populace 
were informed by an intelligent refugee that the enemy 
were within sight. Yet the days passed on ; the 
Chinese government began to show vitality, and the 
jrreat rebellion, with all its fearful butcherv and refine- 
ment of cruelty, was extinguished without the molesta- 
tion of the foreigners at Shanghai, and was overcome, 
notwithstanding the encouraging assurance given the 
rebels by the United States Commissioner that our 
government was not disposed to interfere with their 
outrages. 

While in Shanghai Mr. Taylor wrote some admir- 
able articles upon the tea culture of China, and upon 
the possible commerce with the Pacific coast of Amer- 
ica, which were published in New York and London. 
He felt the throes of an earthquake while there, and 
had some pleasant interviews with the educated classes 



BIXOMES A SAILOR. 229 

of China. He saw the parade of the native soldiers, 
and witnessed their grotesque religious ceremonies. 
His observation was so close, and his generalization 
usually so just, that until within a few years there has 
been no book printed in America which 'gave so much 
of the information desired by popular readers in so 
little s[)ace as Taylor's account of that visit. 

Early in May Commodore Perry arrived at Shanghai, 
prepared for the expedition which the United States 
had ordered him to make to Japan, and Mr. Taylor's 
long-felt desire to embark on that enterprise was 
gratified. He was compelled to enlist in the navy as 
master's mate, and subject himself and all that he 
should write, to the orders of the navy department 
and officers of the fleet. It seemed at first to be rather 
humiliating terms, but after he had made the acquaint- 
ance of the oflScers and learned the ways of a ship he 
found it a very pleasant position. Thus, from one 
calling to another, he turned with a readiness and a 
success which were astonishing. 



230 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR, 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

His Reception on the Man-of-war. — Commodore Perry's Tribute. — 
Mr. Taylor's Journals. — Visit to the Loo-Choo Islands. — Explora- 
tions. — Mr. Taylor becomes a Favorite. — His Description of the 
Country. — Cruise to Japan. — The Purpose of the Expedition. — 
Mr. Taylor's Assistance. — Return to Hong-Kong. — Resigns his 
Commission. — Visits Canton. — Sails for America. — St. Helena. 
— Arrival in New York. 

There was some opposition to Mr. Taylor's request 
to be taken into the United States service, but his per- 
sistenc}^ and gentlemanly address not only overcame 
the scruples of the Commodore, but soon made him a 
general favorite. Commodore Perry, after his return 
to the United States, mentioned the circumstances 
connected with Mr. Taylor's enlistment, and used the 
following language : — 

' ' On m}" arrival at Shanghai I found there Mr. Baj^ard 
Taylor, who had a letter of introduction to me from an 
esteemed friend in New York. He had been a long time, 
as I understood, exceedingly anxious to join the squadron, 
that he might visit Japan, which he could reach in no other 
way. 

'' On presenting the letter referred to, he at once made a 
request to accompany me ; but to this application I strongly 
objected, intimating to him the determination I had made at 
the commencement of the cruise to admit no civilians, and 



m tnti NAVY. 231 

explaining how the few who were in the squadron had, by 
signing the shipping articles, subjected themselves to all the 
restraints and penalties of naval law ; that there were no 
suitable accommodations for him, and that should he join 
the expedition he would be obliged to suffer, with the other 
civilians, many discomforts and privations, and would more- 
over be restricted, under a general order of the navy depart- 
ment, from communicating any information to the public 
prints or privately to his friends ; that all the notes or gen- 
eral observations made by him during the cruise would 
belong to the government, and therefore must be deposited 
with me. Notwithstanding this, however, with a full knowl- 
edge of all the diflaculties and inconveniences which would 
attend his joining the squadron, he still urged his applica- 
tion. 

"Being thus importuned, and withal very favorably 
impressed with his gentlemanlike and unassuming manners, 
I at last reluctantly consented, and he joined the mess of 
Messrs. Heine and Brown on board the ' Susquehanna.' 
During the short time he remained in the squadron he gained 
the respect and esteem of all, and by his habits of observa- 
tion, aided by his ready pen, became quite useful in prepar- 
ing notes descriptive of various incidents that transpired 
during our first brief visit to Japan and the Islands. It 
was the only service he could render, and it was afforded 
cheerfully. These notes have been used in the preparation 
of my report, and due credit has, I trust, been given to 
h_m. Some of the incidents illustrative of the events men- 
tioned in my official communications were, with my consent, 
written out by Mr. Taylor and sent home by him for pubh- 
cation in the United States. These he has used in his late 



232 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOK. 

work. His original journals were honorably deposited iu 
my hands. His reports, like those of every other individual 
detailed for the performance of a special duty, were of 
course delivered to me, and became Dart of the official 
records of the expedition." 

This tribute of friendship and respect, thus freely 
bestowed by one holding the high rank of Commodore 
Perry, gratified the friends of Mr. Taylor very much 
at the time they were written, and will now be prized 
by them as a testimonial from the highest and best 
source. 

On leaving the port of Shanghai the squadron of 
the Commodore proceeded direct to the Loo-Choo 
Islands, which were a group of thirty-six islands 
lying to the south-west of Japan, and tributary to that 
empire. On the 26th of May, 1853, the several 
steamers and sailing vessels came to anchor in a har- 
bor of the Great Loo-Choo Island, but a few miles 
from the capital of the kingdom. Immediately Mr. 
Taylor's services as a descriptive writer were brought 
into requisition, and so proficient and industrious was 
he, and he so much excelled the others with whom he 
was associated, that the Commodore saw fit to entrust 
to his quick eye and ready pen many of the most 
important details of the expedition. His reports or 
journals of the explorations were never published in 
full, and as the government kept them from him Mr. 
Taylor could not use them in his book of travels in 
Japan and Loo-Choo. This is much to be regretted 



AT LOO-CHOO. 233 

now, as the greatly condensed narrative which ap- 
peared in his book does not give the reader a compre- 
hensive idea of Mr. Taylor's capabilities. His news- 
paper correspondence was always more readable and 
full than were the pages of his book; for, between his 
desire not to tire the reader nor impoverish the pub- 
lisher, he frequently culled and abridged too much. 
What a wonderful volume would that be wherein 
should be published in full Mr. Taylor's descriptions 
of the countries of Loo-Choo and Japan, without con- 
densation or abridgment. To illustrate this thought, 
and to give a clear specimen of his style, we insert a 
page from his diary of the 28th of May, 1853, reciting 
his experience when out in a small boat in the harbor 
of the Great Loo-Choo Island visiting the coral reef. 
It was a very little incident, but we ask the reader to 
notice how full of interesting information and beauti- 
ful reference he made his account of it : 

"The crew were Chinamen, wholly ignorant of the 
use of oars, and our trip would have been of little 
avail had not the sea been perfectly calm. With a lit- 
tle trouble we succeeded in making them keep stroke, 
and made for the coral reef, which separates the north- 
ern from the lower channel. The tide was nearly out, 
and the water was very shoal on all the approaches to 
the reef. We found, however, a narrow channel \s ind- 
ing between the groves of mimic foliage, and landed 
on the spongy rock, which rose about a foot above the 
water. Here the little pools that seamed the surface 



234 LTFB OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

were alive with crabs, snails, star-fish, sea-prickles, 
and numbers of small fish of the intensest blue color. 
We found several handsome shells clinging to the coral. 
But all our efi'orts to secure one of the fish failed. 
The tide was ebbing so fast that we were obliged to 
return for fear of grounding the boat. We hung for 
some time over the coral banks, enraptured with the 
beautiful forms and colors exhibited by this wonderful 
vegetation of the sea. The coral grew in rounded 
banks, with the clear, deep spaces of water between, 
resembling, in miniature, ranges of hills covered with 
autumnal forests. The loveliest tints of blue, violet, 
pale-green, yellow, and white gleamed through the 
waves. And all the varied forms of veofetable life were 
grouped together along the edges of cliffs and preci- 
pices, hanging over the chasms w^orn by currents be- 
low. Through those paths and between the stems of 
the coral groves, the blue fish shot hither and thither 
like arrows of the purest lapis-lazuli : and others of a 
dazzling emerald color, with tails and fins tipped with 
gold, eluded our chase like the green bird in the 
Arabian story. Far down below in the dusky depth 
of the waters we saw now and then some large brown 
fish hovering stealthily about the entrances to the coral 
groves, as if lying in wait for their bright little inhab- 
itants. The water w^as so clear that the eye was 
deceived as to its depths and we seemed now to rest on 
the branching tops of some climbing forest, now to 
hang suspended as in mid air between the crests of two 



HIS REPORTS. 235 

opposing ones. Of all the wonders of the sea, which 
have furnished food for poetry and fable, this was as- 
suredly the most beautiful." 

That trait, which characterized Mr. Taylor, accounts 
in a measure for the inclination of all persons who met 
him to hold his companionship and acquaintance. As 
Mr. Taylor's esteemed friend, Mr. E. P. Whipple, of 
Boston, once beautifully remarked of another, Mr. 
Taylor was sought by men, "because they learned 
more of the world and its beauties through his eyes 
than through their own." His services in givino- an 
accurate idea of the countries they explored were in- 
valuable, because it Avas not only necessary to visit 
those countries and open their ports to commerce, but 
it was also necessary to give to the American people 
such a idea of the advantages and conveniences of 
trade as to induce them to enter upon it. Nothing 
could be clearer than his views of life in these islands, 
nothing more complete than his enumeration of the 
products, manufactures, and needs of the countries 
they visited. The publication in full of all his notes 
and observations as suggested to the Naval Department 
by the oflScers of the Squadron at the time, would have 
given our people a better understanding of the impor- 
tance of the commerce and the character of the people, 
than any other repon could do. However, the Com- 
modore used a great many pages of Mr. Taylor's jour- 
nal while making his report to the United States Gov- 
ernment. 



236 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Mr. Taylor was detailed to attend nearly every 
important excursion, and was a most hearty and perse- 
vering explorer. He pushed into the interior of an 
unknown jungle, intent on finding new flowers, new 
minerals, or new animals. He ascended every moun- 
tain which was accessible, and ventured into every cave 
that could be reached by boat or foot. The Great 
Loo-Choo Island became familiar to him, and its flora 
and fiiuna were indelibly catalogued in his mind, while 
the varied views of mountain, vale, forest, bay, and 
sea were engraved upon his memory. By his good 
nature and kindly regard for the welfare of the Loo- 
Choo natives when they met, he contributed not a 
little toward the safety and success of the exploration 
in that island. 

From Loo-Choo the fleet sailed to the Bonin Islands, 
where a harbor suitable for a depot of supplies was 
found and land purchased by the Conunodore for 
government buildings should his choice of a harbor be 
confirmed. The ships returned to Loo-Choo and pro- 
ceeded directly to the bay of Yeddo in Japan. 

For two hundred years that important nation had 
preserved its exclusiveness, and had become almost as 
unknown to the western nations as an undiscovered 
continent. Almost every commercial nation had, from 
time to time, attempted to secure a footing for a trad- 
ing-post or a harl)or for their vessels. In every 
instance they had failed, and the civilized world had 
looked upon Japan as a country sealed beyond hop-' 



IN JAPAN. 237 

of breaking. It must have appeared to every one, 
including the Commodore himself, that the under- 
taking in which he was engaged was an especially diffi- 
cult enterprise. How could he hope to succeed where 
England, Portugal, Holland, Italy, and Russia had 
failed ? Yet he succeeded beyond anything the most 
hopeful had desired ; and as a result of his expedition 
a mighty nation and a fertile country were restored to 
the family of nations. 

In that expedition Mr. Taylor took a deep interest, 
and with great enthusiasm wrote letters to his home 
descriptive of Fusiyama, Kanagawa, and the scenery 
around Yeddo Bay. During the long delay made by 
the Japanese authorities, to impress the Commodore 
with their dignity, he was engaged with eye and ear 
and pen in the service of his country. With the devo- 
tion which marked all his undertakings, he noted 
everything which passed under his scrunity, in order 
that the Commodore might be informed of every 
detail. Many travellers pass months at Yokohama, 
Yeddo, or Nagasaki, making investigations and excur- 
sions, without finding out so much of interest as Mi*. 
Taylor saw in a single day. That natural and acquired 
acuteness of observation, and that intuitive compre- 
hension which made him so conspicuous, are well wor- 
thy of study and imitation by all persons who are 
ambitious to excel, whether engaged in travelUng or 
in any other occupation. So thoroughly had he dis- 
ciplined himself in the inspection of all that sur- 



238 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

rounded him, that when he arrived in Japan, the ships, 
the junks, the people, their dress, their customs, their 
food, their language, the vegetation, the minerals, the 
animals, the birds, the landscapes, the bays, the prom- 
ontories, the islands, the sea, the air, the sky, the 
stars, the wind, and the sunlight were each and all 
full of suggestions and valuable instruction. One 
could not follow Mr. Taylor's writings in the closing 
years of his travels without becoming conscious of 
ignorance and slirrt-sightedness concerning the com- 
monest things of life. It made his readers feel, often- 
times, when they discovered how much he had noticed 
which they had overlooked, as boys feel when a play- 
mate finds a silver dollar on a spot which they have 
passed and repassed without his good luck ; with the 
difference, however, that Mr. Taylor's good fortune in 
that respect was the result of hard work and careful 
culture. 

After the close of the preliminary negotiations, and 
a hasty survey of the bay of Yeddo, the fleet departed 
on a short cruise to Hong-Kong, in order to give the 
Japanese emperor time to think over the propositions 
which the United States Government had made to His 
Majesty. 

The trip to Hong-Kong, by way of the Loo-Choo 
Islands, was without special incident, and on the 7th of 
August he was again in the harbor which he had left 
in the month of March. For five months he had 
known what it was to be a seamen and made subject 



RETURN TO HONG-KONG. 239 

to the strict orders enforced on a man-of-war. It was 
a fresh experience. He was keen enough to recognize 
the merits and failings of naval discipline and naval 
drill. He saw that many improvements might be 
made in both. He thought, furthermore, that the 
ships themselves might be constructed on a better 
pattern. Hence, he boldly recommended changes 
whenever the opportunity came for him to speak 
through the public prints. He had become much 
attached to the officers and men of his ship, and parted 
with them at Honor-Kon2: with the fcelino^ of sincere 
regret. He had made it his home on board, and had 
been so contented and so kindly treated that he felt 
the pangs of homesickness as he shook hands and 
went over the side for the last time. 

Although he had enlisted for the usual term of 
years, as the laws of the United States recognized no 
shorter term, and ran the risk of being held to the 
terms of his enlistment, yet there was a tacit under- 
standing between him and the Commodore that he 
should be allowed to resign when the fleet returned to 
Macao. Consequently, when he presented at that 
port his resignation it was promptly accepted, and he 
became a civilian again. He found it nearly as awk- 
ward to be a landsman as he had at first to be a sailor, 
and often looked out on the great men-of-war, as they 
lay at anchor, with an indescribable yearning to tread 
their decks. 

From Macao, he made excursious to Hong-Kong 



240 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

and Canton, finding friends that pleased him, and an 
aristocratic snobbery that displeased him, in the for- 
mer place, and dirt, vice, and cheating in the latter, 
which made him further disgusted with the Chinese 
race. In Canton, as elsewhere, he spoke of them in 
strong terms, condemning their importation into the 
United States in a manner to please the bitterest 
hater of the Celestials to be found on our Pacific 
coast. Yet he visited the shops, practised the "pig- 
eon English," visited the great temple of Honan, 
tested the power of opium by smoking it himself, 
made a tour into the country, interested himself in 
the foreign factories and the local government, and 
made the acquaintance of many enterprising foreign 
merchants. But his aversion to the Chinese, doubt- 
less intensified by the wild rumors of barbarous deeds 
then current on account of the rebellion, was not 
abated after he had seen the gi'eat metropolis ; and he 
frankly admitted, in his letters and in his book, that 
he was glad to get away from China. 

At Canton, he took passage in a sailing vessel bound 
for New York, that being his most direct and least 
expensive route. He was anxious to return to the 
United States, because he had been absent over twc 
years, and because of some financial arrangements 
which he considered it important to make. He felt 
also that if he should publish a record of his travels in 
the form of books, the sooner they were issued after 
his letters had appeared in the " Tribune," the better 



RETURN TO AMERICA. 241 

for the publishers and for himself. In this undertak- 
ing, however, he was much delayed. 

The ship in which he sailed, passed the Philippine 
Islands and the coast of Java, and rounding the Cape 
of Good Hope, stopped for water at the isle of St. 
Helena. The body of the Emperor Napoleon had 
been removed to Paris, but Mr. Taylor found it a very 
interesting and romantic spot. He was as much 
shocked, however, by the desecration of the spot by 
the practical herd-keepers, as he was by the profanity 
of the machine-rhymester who marred the grotto of 
the poet Camoens at Macao with a doggerel composi- 
tion. Mr. Taylor felt the absurdity of such profana- 
tions, as none but poetical natures can feel them. 

From St. Helena, the voyage was not unusually 
eventful, and after one hundred and one days at sea, 
and with Mr. Taylor nearly that number of days 
engaged in writing and correcting, they arrived in 
New York on the 20th of December, 1853. His wel- 
come to New York and to his old home was one of the 
most pleasant experiences of his life, and he often 
mentioned it as being as exciting as the event of his 
first return when he walked into the old homestead in 
his German walking-suit. 



242 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

T/ikes up the Editorial Pen. — Publication of His " Poems of the 
Orient." — His Books of Travel. — Lecturing before Lyceums. — 
Friendship of Richard H. Stoddard. — Private Correspondence. 
— Love of Fun. — Resolves to Build a Home at Kennett. — 
Charges of Intemperance. — Preparations for a Third Trip to 
Europe. — Acquaintance with Thackeray. 

Immediately upon his return from China, he entered 
again the traces for hard and long literary work. He 
had written poems, and snatches of poems, verses, 
and couplets in his spare hours as a traveller, and his 
note-book and guide-books were full of such impul- 
sive productions, written on the margin and on the 
fly-leaves. Those scattered compositions he desired 
to reduce to satisfactory and convenient shape for 
publication. Some of them had been written on the 
seas, some on the Nile, one in Spain, one in Constanti- 
nople, one in Jerusalem, two in Gotha, and several in 
railways and steamboats. The thought of publishing 
them in the form of a book, was suggested to him by 
one of his intimate friends in New York, — either 
Mr. Stoddard or Mr. Eipley, — his intention having 
been to publish them from time to time in some peri- 
odical, in much the same manner as he had contributed 
to the "Union Magazine," some eight years before. 



HIS PUBLICATIONS. 243 

But he bad sufficient appreciation of his own genius to 
act promptly on such a suggestion of his friends, and 
the first few weeks after his return were occupied with 
that work, in addition to the work of arranging and 
correcting his unpublished letters to the "Tribune." 
When he had completed the "Poems of the Orient," 
it was published by Ticknor & Fields, of Boston, as 
a companion volume to the "Rhymes of Travel," and 
"Book of Romances," both of which were united in 
one volume, in 1856, under the title of "Poems of 
Home and Travel." In the preparation of these 
poems, he was greatly assisted by the kindly and dis- 
creet criticism of his friend Stoddard, which he not 
only acknowledged in the remarkable dedication 
"From Mount Tmolus," but mentioned it to his 
relatives with expressions of thankfulness. The pub- 
lic owe a debt to Mr. Stoddard for his generosity and 
hospitality to Mr. Taylor, as well as for the beautiful 
poems and truthful biographies which he has written. 
A true man is a friendly critic, if a critic at all. 
Such was Richard H. Stoddard. 

Mr. Taylor was then called into a new work by a 
curious public, who wished to see the man who had 
wandered so ftxr, and had seen so much of this great 
earth. Hence he was repeatedly called upon to lecture 
in various cities of the Eastern and Middle States. His 
financial condition was not so prosperous as to pre- 
clude the possibility of future needs, and as the 
mvitations to lecture were accompauied by very liberal 



244 LIFE OF BATARD TAYLOR. 

offers in the way of remuneration, he accepted many 
of them. It was, however, an uncongenial occupa- 
tion. Public speaking had never been recognized as 
one of his great gifts, and the great masses who gather 
on such occasions, gather more for amusement than 
study. They wished to see how he appeared. The 
ladies desired to know if he was handsome, well 
dressed, and what was the color of his eyes and hair. 
The men wished to see if he had become a foreigner 
in speech or manner. The boys wanted to hear bear 
stories, and the girls of wild giraffes and affectionate 
gazelles. Not that the public desired to hear pure 
nonsense ; but that it wished its lessons very much 
diluted. The polished essays of Mr. Taylor, with their 
poetical language and refinement of expression, were 
of little or no account, and a view of his portly phy- 
sique, and the right to say that they had seen him, 
and heard him, satisfied the greater portion. To him, 
such audiences were not agreeable. Whenever he 
could find a friend like O'Brien or Stoddard, he 
enjoyed reading his own productions ; but to be set up 
ds a show, had in it no such satisfiiction. Being also 
very much engaged in preparing his books of travel, 
and in writing for the "Tribune," often writing on 
the railway trains, and in hotels, he was weary, and 
could not enter into the labor of public teaching with 
the zest which might otherwise have been expected of 
liim. Yet, in point of numbers, and financial returns, 
Ips tour, during the winter of 1854, was successful, 



HIS CORRESPONDENTS. 245 

and the harvest for the season of 1855 promised to be 
still larger. 

Ill addition to the work already mentioned, he Iiad a 
great number of private correspondents, whose letters 
he answered with astonishing punctuality. Men n 
Egypt, China, England, Germany, California, and the 
United States, sent him letters of inquiry about the 
best routes, and cheapest outfit for travel. To which 
he replied as fully as he could, always remembering the 
like favors done him when in the printing-office at 
West Chester. There was a large number of friendly 
acquaintances in many parts of the world who desired 
to sustain a correspondence with him, and, often, his 
desk at the "Tribune" had piled upon it as many 
as fourscore letters, brought by a single mail. It 
seems incredible when we think of the amount of 
writing Mr. Taylor did during the years of 1854 and 
1855. 

Owing to the great amount of work which could 
not be postponed, and the fact that the "Tribune" had 
the moral right to his letters before he offered them for 
sale in the form of a book, the last of his three 
volumes of travel did not appear until August, 1855. 

At one time, he entertained the idea of publishing 
a book of songs, and consulted with his publisher con- 
cerning the probable success of such a volume. But 
having had his attention called to the fact that the 
veriest trash answered the purpose of musical com- 
posers fully as well as sterling poetry, he abandoned 



246 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

the idea. The thought was probably suggested to him 
by the writings of Thomas Moore, whose " Lalla 
Rookh" was frequently brought to mind while Mr. 
Taylor was writing out the chapters of his book, 
wherein he described his visit to Agra and Delhi in 
India. The objections which he found to a volume of 
songs, seemed equally applicable to single productions 
which might be included in such a category, and he 
not only suppressed many he had written, but cau 
tiously cut out verses in such as had been printed, 
before he allowed them to be published again. He went 
so far as to request that the song for which he obtained 
the Jenny Lind prize in 1850, should be kept forever 
out of print. Some of these are said to be among his 
papers in Germany, where his body now lies, and the 
writer sincerely wishes to see them all in print at a 
day not very remote, together with the epistolary 
poems and friendly sonnets which have been sent by 
him to the distinguished scholars and poets who 
enjoyed his friendship. It will take time to gather 
them, but, when collected, will make the best of read- 
ing, and will show the joyous, simple, sincere char- 
acter of the poet, as no amount of prose can do. 

As early as October, 1854, Mr. Taylor conceived 
the idea of building a summer residence near the old 
homestead at Kennett. It may have been a purpose 
entertained in his youth, for he often mentions, directly 
and indirectly, in his early writings, the s».enery and 
the people about his home at Kennett But in that 



LOVE OF HOME. 247 

year the idea appears to have assumed the form of a 
possibility, for he wrote to one of his old schoolmates, 
who resided that autumn in Jersey City, saying that 
he began to see his way for a house of his own at 
Kennett. The letter set in circulation the report 
that he was soon to be married ; but he had kept 
his own counsel so well, and held aloof so stu- 
diously from the company of ladies, that none of 
the gossips could possibly hint at the person of his 
choice. This loyalty to his home and desire to 
return to it like a weary bird to its nest, was a 
beautiful trait of his character, and testifies strongly 
to his natural goodness of heart. For it will be found 
that the noblest men of all ages and professions have 
loved the homes of their childhood, while the selfish, 
narrow, barbarous, and mean, universally regard their 
early associations with neglect or contempt. 

A touching scene arises before the writer, as he 
reaches this theme, and the tears will come to the eye 
and cheek ! Away in that German land sleeps the 
son and brother. The romantic home at Kennett, 
Btands cosy, yet stately, among the winter-stricken 
trees. Inside are the dear ones whom neither years, 
nor honors, nor wanderings have induced him to for- 
get — the father and the mother in the mansion of their 
son. There is the sister, whose feet, after years of 
absence, tread again the paths of home. There the 
visitor feels the gloom of a distant death. Windows 
that flashed with light; drawing-rooms that were 



248 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

made charming by the cheerful faces of the great and 
good, are now suggestive of sadness and disaster. 
The cold winds shake the dry vines, and cry around 
its cornices. The loved ones are there, — waiting, 
waiting for him to come home I He never disap- 
pointed them before. Why comes he not? Why do 
not his letters come with the mail ? 

** Moan, ye wild winds ! around the pane, 
And fall thou drear December rain ! " 

Ah, we know the meaning now of those sad words. 
For we have lived them too ! 

Ever looking forward to the time when he could 
give his parents a more luxurious home, feeling most 
keenly the rapid strides of time, as he looked upon 
their whitening locks, unwilling to prosper alone, and 
promoting ever the welfare of those he loved, he 
strove with an unchangeable determination to accumu- 
late sufficient money to build a house near the old farm, 
that should be a home for all, and a resting-place for 
himself. To this, in part, was due his incessant work 
through the years of 1854 and 1855. His books brought 
him a considerable return ; he received a reasonable 
compensation as editor and lecturer, and he had lifted 
the load of debt which the " Phoenixville Pioneer " had 
bequeathed to him, but which no one believed he was 
able to pay ; and could look forward to a competency 
and, perhaps, to wealth. Yet, in all his work, there 
was a cheerfulness that seemed to give rest while tha 



SOCiAL HABIfS. 249 

work went on. He often indulged in fun, was ever 
joking with his friends, and indulging in pla^'ful pranks 
with his acquaintances. Usuall}^ however, his face- 
tiousness was itself a method of self-discipline, — a 
diflferent kind of work. He used to visit his friends 
whenever an evening could be spared from necessary 
labor, and spend the hours in writing and exchanging 
humorous burlesques, acrostics, sonnets, and parodies. 
Sometimes he would " race " with his literary friends 
in writing lines of poetry on a given subject, and 
although, as he afterward acknowledged, he often came 
in second best, yet he enjoyed the sport and the satis- 
faction of the victor none the less. The same fun- 
loving, mischievous, kind-hearted boy, who enjoyed 
writins: extravao:ant verses, and sendinpr them to his 
schoolmates, walked the streets of New York in 1855. 
Time had given discretion, sorrow had given reserve ; 
but the fun bubbled out whenever the waters were 
moved. His mirth was less ostentatious, but not less 
hearty. Loving a bottle of beer, or wine, for the 
sake of sociability, for in his younger days it was 
universally considered a necessity, he never drank 
to excess, nor was ever regarded by his companions as 
an intemperate man. Envious simpletons have some- 
times accused him of intemperate habits during those 
two years ; but so well-known and frank was his life, 
that it would have been then, as it certainly is now, a 
waste of time to deny so absurd a statement. So- 
called temperance men are often the most intemperate 



250 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

people k' own in public life. As temperance, in fact, 
consists t (' temperance in all things, as well as in the 
use of int )xicating drinks, the real temperance people 
of Americ a will discourage alike the excess in the use 
of stimultnts, and that excess in the use of epithets 
and misrej resentation, which, by the resulting reaction, 
encourage; the use of that which they wish to prohibit. 
Intempcra. 3 speeches, like intemperate laws, and 
intemperat j drinking, are to be condemned and 
avoided by all who believe the Highest Moral Stand- 
ard known to man. It is exceedingly intemperate to 
circulate a alsehood about any person, and especially 
of one of ir own American family, who has done so 
much for c\v nation, and "never wished harm to any 
man." 

It had long been Mr. Taylor's wish to take his 
sisters and brother to Europe with him, in order that 
they might oijoy those scenes which had pleased him 
so much ; and he had often mentioned, in his letters 
to them from abroad, how much more he would enjoy 
the advantages of travel, if they could be with him to 
share in his pleasure. He was too generous to desire 
the exclusive enjoyment of anything, and was espe- 
cially anxious that those related to him should reap the 
benefits of all his labors. Hence, in the spring of 1856 
(not without correspondence with one in Gotha, how- 
ever), he arranged his plans for another series of 
excursions in Europe, and persuaded his sisters and 
brother to accompany him. 



GOES TO ENGLAND. 251 

It was during those two years of labor that he made 
the acquaintance of many of the distinguished literary 
men of Massachusetts, and in one of those years — 1855 
— he secured the acquaintance and friendship of Wil- 
liam Makepeace Thackeray, who visited this country 
then for the second time, and delivered his long- 
remembered lectures on the "English Humorists of 
the Eighteenth Century," and "The Four Georges." 
So well known, and so much respected had Mr. Tay- 
lor become, that he was sought l)y the great of both 
continents, and when he departed for Europe, in the 
spring of 1856, the kind wishes of thousands of 
America's representative men and women went with 
him, and a welcome awaited him on the shores of 
England from as many more. 



252 LIFE OF BAVAllD TAYl.OR. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Visit to Europe. — Reception in England. — Company in Cbargfc. - 
Starts for Sweden. — Stockholm. — The Dangerous Ride. — The 
SeTere Cold. — Arrival in Lapland. — First Experience with Canoes 
and Reindeers. — Becomes a Lapp. — The Extreme North. — The 
Days without a Sun. — " Yankee Doodle." — The Return. — Study 
in Stockholm. — Return to Germany and London. — Embarks for 
Norway. — Meets his Friend at Christiania. — The Coast of Nor- 
way. — The Midnight Sun. — Trip across Norway and Sweden. — 
Return to Germany. 

Without bringing the living into a notoriety which 
they certainly do not seek, and which might be un- 
pleasant for them, w^e cannot give an extended account 
of that summer trip of Mr. Taylor and his friends in 
the countries of Europe, already so familiar to him. 
He devoted himself to the welfare of his companions, 
and appeared to enjoy himself exceedingly. England 
appeared brighter and more akractive than he supposed 
it possible ; and his pleasure in visiting historical 
places was doubled by the fact that he had others to 
appreciate and enjoy it with him. His sisters inherited 
enough of that same instinctive comprehension of 
vegetable nature, and enough of that fellowship with 
kindrsd human nature, to regard the landscapes and 
the people as he had regarded them, and made, as 
he wi'ote to his friends in Philadelphia, wonderfully 



RECEPTION IN ENGLAND. 253 

observing travellers. Other friends there were, who, 
with his brother, made up a pleasant party, over which 
Mr. Taylor was for the time the guide and protector. 
He visited many places w^here he had never been before, 
but he had studied his theme so closely during his previ- 
ous visits to Europe that even in strange places he felt 
the gratification of one who had been there before, 
and to whom each scene and relic was familiar. His 
little party was often interrupted by the calls made 
upon him to attend dinner-parties and select gather- 
ings of literary people ; but he was not a neglectful 
escort. His acquaintance with the men and women of 
London whose names are known to all readers of Eng- 
lish literature, was promoted very much by the kind- 
ness of Mr. Thackeray, who spared no pains to intro- 
duce Mr. Taylor into that " charmed circle." No one can 
appreciate the pleasure there was in being introduced 
to the authors of whom the world has said so much, 
unless he has followed them like a friend through their 
various volumes and learned to love them there. 
Historians, essayists, biographers, poets, musical com- 
posers, and scientific authors clasped his hand in 
London and welcomed him to their homes and their 
love. At last he felt that he had reached the heights 
for which he had been striving, and was regarded as 
an equal by those whose plane of thought he had so 
long striven to reach. But that feeling had its reac- 
tion, for he often examined himself and repeated to 
huaself his published poetry, and, as he described it 



254 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

himself, wondered what there could be in it worthy of 
reproduction in Old England. His association with 
the master-minds of England opened to him a wider 
field of literature, and impressed him with the impor- 
tance of writing something loftier and more artistic 
than anything he yet had undertaken. To that task 
he turned all the forces of his nature ; so that on leav- 
ing England his friends noticed through all his vivacity 
and unceasing attention a tendency to abstraction ; as 
though some important theme unspoken was upper- 
most in his mind. He was searching for an ideal 
which should not copy Tennyson, nor Wordsworth, 
nor Browning, but should equal theirs in conception 
and execution. He felt that irresistible yearning for 
the highest poetical work, which is the surest indica- 
tion of genius. He was not egotistic, he was not fool- 
ishly ambitious, but all his life he had been seeking 
his place in the realms of poetry, feeling morally sure, 
notwithstanding his own temporary misgivings, that 
there was a great work for him to do. 

However, the needs of the present crowded out the 
dreams of the future, as they so often do in the lives 
of othei's, and after a delightful summer in the lands he 
loved, and a visit to those who were now dearer than 
the most gorgeous landscapes, he determined upon a 
trip to the frozen regions of Lapland. He undertook 
that journey with evident reluctance. His communion 
with the best minds of America and Europe had taught 
him that of the works which he had published his 



HIS AMBITION. 255 

poetry would live much longer than his travels. He 
found that the place of a poet in the scale of human 
merit was loftier than that of a journalistic traveller. 
He had left home with a feeling of uncertainty about 
his future course ; but there was uo longer hesitation 
or doubt. He would follow out the routes laid out and 
keep his promises to the newspapers and publishers, 
and was determined to acquire an insight into the 
Scandinavian language in view of an enterprise in the 
way of translation, which, however, was never fully 
matured nor undertaken. But his interest in travel 
had lost its chiefest charms. It would not, could not, 
satisfy his ambition. Some critics have accounted for 
this lack of zeal by the nearness of his marriage, which 
would take him from his wanderings. But the best 
reason is the one he gave himself; viz., that he desired 
to undertake some more permanent task — one that 
should live when his travels were forgotten. 

Hence, that indescribable lack which his readers 
have so universally found in his books of travels pub- 
lished after that date. He could not rid himself of the 
burden, nor cease to ponder upon the subjects which 
seemed worthy of a great poem. 

Starting from Germany Dec. 1, 1856, and embark- 
ing on a steamer which ran between Lubec and Stock- 
holm, he entered upon an undertaking more hazard- 
ous and uncomfortable than anything he had ventured 
upon before. But his experience taught him to feai 
nothing and to move on so long as any other living 



256 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

being had lived on the same route. He had deter- 
mined to see a day without a sunrise and a night with- 
out a sunset. To be able to state that fact in a book, 
would, in itself, ensure its ready sale. Of this he 
had been assured in New York by his friend Dr. E. 
K. Kane, whose opinion was entitled to much consid- 
eration, as the Doctor had been far more extensively 
engaged in explorations, and had travelled many 
thousand miles further than Mr. Taylor. Having 
once decided to see that wonderful sight, nothing in 
the way of privation could prevent the accomplishment 
of his purpose. 

The steamer from Lubec was a rough, uncouth, incon- 
venient craft, and the sea-sick voyage which Mr. Tay- 
lor and his friend made to Stockholm was not an 
auspicious beginning for a tour so long and so danger- 
ous. But he relapsed into his old habit, acquired in 
Asia, of regarding no delay with surprise or impa- 
tience, and refusing to feel certain of anything until 
he possessed it ; and as neither carelessness, neglect, 
lack of sleep or food was allowed to disturb him, he 
made the company cheerful under the most distressing 
circumstances. 

On his arrival in Stockholm he could not speak a 
word of the language, and had to depend mostly upon 
his own common-sense in the selection of an outfit. 
But his quick car and tractile tongue soon caught up 
words and phrases, the meaning of which he learned by 
their effect when spokeu, and when he started north- 




''!iii"iMi:iniii'nii:iii,iii;'jyiiiiuMii;"iiii.ii'injiuiiMu iiimjiDuuiiiuuiJ 



TRIP TO LAPLAND. 257 

ward he was able to ask tor nearly everything he 
needed in the native language. Of his ride from tow^n 
to lown, by diligence and by lumbering sleighs, along 
the shores of the Bothnian Gulf, we cannot give any 
extended account, and it can easily be found by any 
reader who did not peruse it at the time of its publi- 
cation. But it answers our purpose to note how he 
appeared and what he suffered. It was a terrible ride. 
Day after day and night after night he pushed on, 
losing many meals, and often without sleep, in a 
temperature creeping downward far below zero, and 
the sun sinking lower and lower on the southern hori- 
zon. Frequently overturned in the snow, his beard 
and hair a mass of solid ice, his eyelids frozen together, 
his nose frost-bitten, his hands and feet momentarily 
in danger of freezing, he kept heroically on his course, 
allowing no rumors of unendurable cold or impassable 
mountains of snow ahead to drive him from his pur- 
pose. With a wisdom that saved his life, he fell with 
perfect abandon into the habits of Swedes, Finns, and 
Lapps, as he in turn found himself in their country 
and society, eating what they ate, and wearing such 
skins as they wore, and following their habits, except- 
ing their dirt and their promiscuous arrangements for 
sleeping. Around the gulf to Tornea, and thence to 
Muoniovara, he sped northward with a haste which 
astonished the natives, and a shortness of time which 
has surprised m;iny travellers who have followed him 
ou that difficult route. He made such acquaintfinces 

17 



258 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

aud such friends on his way northward that they 
wished him God-speed as he passed on, and welcomed 
him in a royal manner on his return. On the borders 
of Lapland he took his first lessons in reindeer-driving, 
\ and a most amusing experience he had of it. He 

could not at first balance himself in the narrow boat 
which was built for snow navigation, and he was fre- 
quently overturned in fathomless piles of snow ; and 
as he did not fully understand how to check the speed 
of the animal, he flew like the wind over drifts, hol- 
lows, and around corners with a most dangerous 
speed. Many men would have given up the task, 
after being frozen, kicked, bruised, and pulled half out 
of joint by the first trial. But such experiences were 
regarded by him as a joke, and laughing over past mis- 
haps, he tried again and again, until he could guide a 
deer and balance himself in the narrow pulk as skil- 
fully as the Lapps themselves. He was not a traveller 
who sought luxury and ease. He wished to sound all 
the shoals and depths of local experiences. Some of 
the trials were very hazardous, and make one's hair 
rise as he reads of them. Yet Mr. Taylor appears to 
have put a blind trust in fate and went boldly on. In 
all these visits and undertakings he forgot not his 
Muse, and repeated " Afraja " and the "Arctic Lover" 
when the snow blew too furiously or the cold was too 
far below zero to engage in original composition. 

With the thermometer varying from zero to forty 
degrees below he traversed the wildest part of Lap- 



THE LONG NIGHT. 259 

land, which lies between the Bothnian Gulf and the 
Northern Ocean. 

At Kautockeino, far beyond the Arctic Circle, he 
found friends, through the letter of a mutual acquaint- 
ance, and recorded with his usual kindness of heart, 
how good and how generous they were to him. There, 
too, he saw the day without a sunrise, which he had 
promised himself to see, and his description of the 
white earth, the blue sky, the saffron and orange flushes 
of the morning, and the crimson glow of the evening, 
all combined in a few moments of time as the sun ap- 
proached the line of the horizon and sank again without 
peeping over it, is one of the most charming and 
graphic paragraphs to be found in literature. There, 
too, he saw the moon wheel through her entire circuit, 
withov^ a risins: and without a settinoc. There he 
made sketches of the dwellings and the people which, 
after so much practice, he was able to take in a very 
accurate and artistic manner, and which served after- 
wards for illustrations in the pages of a magazine. 
There he met a Lapp by the name of "Lars," and 
meeting the name often afterwards, suggested the 
name for that poem of "Lars," now as popular in Nor- 
way as in the United States. There, in that extreme 
north, in the house of a native missionary, he found a 
piano, and was half beside himself with joy when the 
kind-hearted minister's wife played "Yankee Doodle." 
She had heard Ole Bull play it at Christiania, and 
caught the tune in that way. 



260 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

His return to Stockholm was more tedious and dan- 
gerous than his northward journey, for the weather vrns 
colder and the storms more severe. But his reception 
at the miserable huts along the route, where he had 
stopped on his journey northward, was always so 
hearty and friendly that he felt no longer in a strange 
land. It was a repetition of his experience elsewhere. 
He was loved at sight, and has not been forgotten to 
this day by the humble friends he made. Nothing 
shows the whole-souled manner in which he threw him- 
self into the feelings and habits of the people, better 
than the expressions which he used in his letters con- 
cerning the scenery. He felt so much like a Swede, 
that he loved the landscapes with the devotion of a 
native. Notwithstanding he had used all the superlative 
terms which our language furnished, in which to de- 
scribe the scenery of the tropics, yet there he went 
further and declares with great enthusiasm, ihat the 
South had no such beautiful scenery as the ice-bound 
forests and mountains of Sweden. To him, when he 
saw them, there were no landscapes to compare with 
those before him. The transparent crystals, the purity 
of the snow, the shape of the half-buried trees, the 
boundless plains of white, and the gleams of acres of 
diamonds when the frosty spirals greet the morning 
sun, all possessed a charm beyond the attractions of 
any other land, so long as he Avas their associate. He 
became a Swede, and knew, when his experience was 
over, just how a Swede lived and how he felt, what he 



RETURN TO THE SOUTH. 261 

loved and what he enjoyed. Thus he carae to a more 
thorough understanding of the people, and had a better 
appreciation of their literature, than any other traveller 
knoAvn to the public prints. 

On his return to Stockholm, February 14, he set 
a])uut the work of learnins^ the lano^uac^e and literature 
of the Swedes. For nearly three months he kept close 
to his books and his practice in the gymnasium, and 
although it seems almost impossible, it is said by his 
associates that he could then read fluently any work to 
be found in the Norse language. 

He left Stockholm on the 6th of May, taking a 
steamer for Copenhagen, from which place he purposed 
to take a steamer for Germany. At Copenhagen he 
met Hans Christian Andersen, the great Danish poet, 
i)y whom Mr. Taylor was received most cordially. 
TJuis, one after another, the great men of the world 
were added to the list of friends found by this son 
of an humble American farmer. Andersen afterwards 
sent Mr. Taylor copies of his poems and essays before 
they were printed, and in many ways showed his regard 
for the American poet. There Mr. Taylor met Prof. 
Rafn, the archaeologist, and Goldschmidt, the author of 
the "The Jew," and editor of a magazine. 

Prof. Rafn, gave Mr. Taylor his initiation into the 
beauties of Icelandic poetry, for the professor was an 
earnest admirer of northern lore, and loved to converse 
with any one who took an interest in it. He read some 
of the verses which he especially admired, for Mr. Tay- 



262 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOK. 

lor's criticism, and Mr. Taylor was so delighted with 
them that he resolved to study the literature of Iceland 
and at some time to visit the Island. 

From Copenhagen Mr. Taylor hurried over to Ger- 
many to look after his friends, and after a stay of a few 
days hastened to London on business connected with 
his books. He left London about the first of July, 
after seeing his relatives depart for America, and 
taking a steamer at Hull, sailed for Christiania in 
Norway. The steamer stopped at Christiansand, 
where the rugged, broken promontories loom up 
so grandly over sea and bay. No harbor is more pic- 
turesque than that of Christiansand, and no coast 
more uneven. Perhaps the best description of the 
coast from Christiansand to Avendal, given by Mr. 
Taylor, is to be found in his poem of "Lars," 
wherein Lars and his Quaker wife sailed from Hull foi 
Apendal. 

" Calm autumn skies were o'er ttiera and the sea 
Swelled in unwrinkled glass : they scarcely knew 
How sped the voyage until Lindesnaes, 
At first a cloud, stood fast and spread away 
To flanking capes, with gaps of blue between ; 
Then rose, and showed, above the precipice, 
The firs of Norway climbing thick and high 
To wilder crests that made the inland gloom. 
In front, the sprinkled skerries jiierced the wave; 
Between then, slowly glided in and out 
The tawny sails, while houses low and red 
Hailed their return or sent them fearless forth. 
* This is thy Norway, Lars; it looks like thee,' 
Said Ruth : ' it has a forehead firm and bold : 



THE LONG DAY. 263 

It sets its foot below the reacli of storms, 
Yet hides, methinks, in each retiring vale, 
Delight in toil, contentment, love, and peace."' 

" ' To starboard, yonder lies the isle 
As I described it ; here, npon our lee 
Is mainland all, and there the Nid comes down, 
The timber-shouldering Nid, from endless woods 
And wilder valleys where scant grain is grown. 
Now bend your glances as my finger points,— 
Lo, there it is, the spire of Apendal,' " 

Arransrements had been made with his intimate Ger- 
man friend, whom he first met in Egypt, and in whom 
Mr. Taylor then took such a deep interest, to meet him 
at the hotel in Christiania, from which place they pur- 
posed to start on a trip overland through Norway to 
Dronthiem, and from that city by steamer to the 
northern capes of Norway, where the summer sun did 
not rise or set. Another " sacred triad ' was formed 
— one German and two Americans — equally fortunate 
and equally pleasant with the former triad in Egypt. 

Their course lay through the rugged and drear land- 
scape of Southern Norway, and at the time they made 
their journey the sky was overcast and the air loaded 
with moisture, giving every bleak cliff a bleaker appear- 
ance, and every barren waste a gloomier aspect. With 
all his poetical nature, Mr. Taylor did not find much 
to admire on his way to Drontheim. His sympathy 
was aroused for the poor farmers who dwell in such a 
solitude as seemed to envelop the land, and be was glad 



264 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

when the gleams of the river announced their approach 
to Drontheim. 

From Drontheim they sailed by the Hammerfest line 
on the 18th of July, following the coast so noted for 
its fantastic crags and startling cliffs. The coast 
scenery from Drontheim to Hammerfest is unquestion- 
ably the most broken and grand in the world. Its 
black towers, enormous arches, gigantic peaks, and 
resounding caverns excel anything in the way of sombre 
grandeur that travellers elsewhere have described. 

As they approached the Arctic Circle the mountains 
became capped with snow, and chilly winds blew oflf 
the land, and the days became so long that the evening 
and the morning succeeded each other with but an 
intervening twilight. Gradually the midnights grew 
brighter until, as they proceeded round the North Cnpe, 
the sun shone in all its splendor throughout the 
twenty-four hours. 

After several days spent in visiting the small fishing 
villages along the northern coast, they again turned 
southward and disembarked at Drontheim, from which 
place they took passage to Bergen. 

From Bergen they travelled on horseback and by 
boats, over the interior lakes to Christiania, and from 
that city through the interior of Wermeland and DfJe- 
carlia to Stockholm, where they arrived about the 
middle of September. There Mr. Taylor rema'ned 
long enough to call on many of the friends whor i he 
had made during the previous winter, and then the 
"triad" departed for Berlin and Gotha. 



HIS MARRIAGE. 265 



CHAPTER XXVn. 

Bis Marriage. — German Relatives. — Intention of visiting Siberia, 
— Goes to Greece instead. — Dalmatia. — Spolato. — Arrival at 
Athens. — His first View of the Propyliea. — The Parthenon. — 
Excursion to Crete. — Earthquake at Corinth. — Mycenae. — 
Sparta. — The Ruins of Olympia. — Visit to Thermopylae. — 
Aulis. — Return to Athens. — His Acquirements. 

Mr. Taylor was married in October foUowino: his 
return from Norway and Sweden, to Marie Hansen, 
whose father had ah*eady gained a world-wide reputa- 
tion as an astronomer througli his works on Physical 
Astronomy, and was then winning renown for his "Tables 
de la Lune," for which lie was given a prize by the 
English Government, as a public benefactor. He was 
a man of remarkable mathematical genius, universally 
respected, and the founder of the Erfurt Observatory 
near Gotha. It was a family of scholars which re- 
ceived Mr. Taylor as a son and brother, and a fortunate 
alliance for the world of letters. It would be inter- 
esting to our readers, no doubt, to know all about the 
ceremony, the guests, the letters, and the relatives. 
But that which at some future day may l)e elevated to 
the plane of history, would be mere gossip now ; and 
could only serve, for the present, to bring more vividly 



2^Q LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

before his loved ones living, the greatness and reality 
of their loss. 

Not even such an event as his marriage was allowed 
to interfere with his work. His travels in the North 
had been in a great measure described in detail from 
day to day, as he stopped for food and rest, and when 
he left Stockholm for Germany, a large pile of manu- 
script had accumulated, which needed correction and 
arrangement before being sent to his publishers in New 
York. To this he applied himself closely, and a 
month after his marriage, was in London making the 
closing arrangements for the appearance of his book 
on "Northern Travel," published by G. P. Putnam 
& Sons, and containing a condensed account of his 
winter and summer in the Norse countries. 

Immediately after despatching the manuscript for 
the book, together with several letters for the press, he 
made his preparations for a winter's sojourn in Greece. 
He had purposed to take a trip from St. Petersburg 
across the continent of Asia, through Siberia to Kamt- 
schatka, and returning through Persia and by the shores 
of the Black Sea. But it appears that neither Mr. 
Greeley, nor Mr. Putnam, nor his German relatives 
approved of the undertaking, which, together with 
some unsatisfactory financial details, caused him to 
abandon the snows of Siberia for the sunshine of At- 
tica. 

This arrangement must have been a far more pleas- 
ant one for him, as Mrs. Taylor and other friends could 



DEPARTURE FOR GREECE. 267 

accompany him to Athens, and as that land was so 
connected with the richest themes for poets and schol 
ars. Many of Byron's poems had been favorites with 
Mr. Taylor from his boyhood, and especially familiar 
were those passages relating to Greece ; for the read- 
ing-books in use by American scholars, in his school- 
days, contained, very wisely, several selections fiora 
Byron's patriotic poems relating to Greece. To this 
was added an appreciation of " Childe Harold," gained 
by visiting the Italian scenery where Byron lived dur- 
ing those years of his voluntary exile. 

The party left Gotha in the early part of December, 
1857, and going down the Dalmatian coast of the Ad- 
riatic Gulf, visited the ancient town of Spolato, where 
the ruins of the Emperor Diocletian's palaces are still 
imposing and beautiful. Without losing the steamer, 
which put in at all the small ports along the route, they 
skirted the southern shores of the Gulf of Corinth ; 
and, after crossing the Isthmus near Ancient Corinth, 
sailed direct for Piraeus. 

To a man of Mr. Taylor's mental capacity and dis- 
position, the country afforded the means for the highest 
enjoyment. Men may be as unsentimental as a beast, 
and as regardless of ancient greatness as a savage, 
and yet their lives will be influenced more or less by a 
sojourn in old Greece. Later philosophers declare, 
and attempt to prove it on scientific principles, that 
the topography of the country, added to the influences 
of the climate, produced he great minds of ancient 



268 LII'E OF BAYARD TAYLOH. 

Greece. If so, which may be wholly or partially true, 
then the same hills and the same valleys, combined with 
the same climate, must influence the mental characteris- 
tics of those who live there now. If, however, as is 
too frequently the fact to make a clear case of the 
philosophers' claims, men do reside under the Acropolis 
and in the Academian groves wholly unaffected by the 
scenery, certain it is that to a poet whose whole ambi- 
tion and only joy was found in a determination to follow 
the lead of Homer, Simonides, and Tyrtseus, it was an 
ecstasy of mental satisfaction to feel the influence of 
the surrounding associations. Even Mr. Taylor feared 
that his name as a poet would lead people to consider 
his descriptions to be somewhat colored by the imag 
ination, and labored hard to avoid the imputation. He, 
with great candor and truth, claimed that men are as 
great as they were in the days of Demosthenes and 
Aristides, although the community to which they be- 
longfed has moved farther west. He did not believe 
that all the great and noble and good belonged to the 
past. He recognized the great fact that dead men 
have better reputations than living ones, and that the 
lono^er a man lies in his o^rave the orreater seem his vir- 
tues, and the less the number and magnitude of his 
faults, ^. e. if he is not forgotten altogether. So, 
Mr. Taylor inserted such thoughts in his letters and 
conversation, for the sake of seasoning his enthusiasm, 
which he feared was too active. But it was as useless 
for him as it was for Byi'on, and as it has been for other 



WINTER IN GREECE. 



269 



American poets who visited those ancient groves, to 
keep above or outside the subtle and powerful influ- 
ences which Greece puts forth. Oh ! land of heroes, 
patriots, poets, philosophers, orators, and musicians ! 
Oh, land of republics and birth-place of fleets ! How 
like a visit to the homes of Solon, Plato, Socrates, and 
Polycrates it is to walk thy fields, and how like a flight 
to the homes of the gods, to dream through thy moon- 
lit nights ! 

Mr. Taylor made the most of his winter in Greece, 
and visited every place of ancient renown which was 
accessible to travellers. He scarcely waited for the 
dawn of his first day in Athens before he hastened to 
the Acropolis, and admired its marvels and historical 
suo-o-cstions. At the Propyloea, which crowns the 
mountahi Avith beauty and majesty, where all the 
destructive inventions of two thousand years have 
failed to annihilate the monument which Phidias and 
Calicrates erected to their genius, Mr. Taylor was 
overwhelmed with emotions, and gazed with wonder at 
the chaste sculpture which adorns the most graceful 
structure ever made of marble, and in silent awe con- 
templated the pillars, cornices, tablets, pavements, and 
broken ornaments with which he was surrounded. 
Where was the Coliseum he had praised so much when 
a boy ? Where were the cathedrals, palaces, and castles 
he had regarded as so sublime? Everything he had 
seen sank into insignificance beside the ponderous yet 
exquisitely beautiful pile before him. He was so 



270 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

affected, that when he spoke he whispered, as if in the 
presence of Jupiter, and his eyes grew moist as he 
tried to compass the grandeur of the lofty Parthenon 
and Propyliea. This language will seem extravagant 
to the reader who has not felt such sensations. The 
writer, who makes no pretensions of being a poet 
either in letters or by nature, has been so filled with 
the unspeakable grandeur of some of the scenes from 
the heights of the Alps, Himalayas, and Rocky Moun- 
tains, as to find himself, to his own surprise, shedding 
copious streams of tears. It is a sensation unknown 
to common experience, and our language has no ade- 
quate terms with which to describe it. Such a feeling, 
beyond a doubt, was that which reigned in his sensitive 
nature when he stood in the porch of the Parthenon. 
To him, those marvels of art produced the impression 
which nothing but the mightiest mountain-peaks could 
awaken in others. It must have been grand to possess 
such a nature ; and it is grand to follow him through 
his letters and books. There was the crowning point 
of all his travel. It had been reserved until near the 
end of his wanderings, and a fitting climax it was. 
The poet and traveller amid the ruins of Athens ! He 
spent many happy hours amid the crumbling evidences 
of Athenian greatness. Temples uncounted lay half- 
buried in the broken soil. Those of Demeter, Her- 
cules, Apollo, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Theseus, Dios- 
curi, could be traced in the earth, or confronted the 
antiquarian with majestic porches; while the Odeon, 



ATHENS. 271 

Gymnasium, Museum, Aglaurium, Lyceum, Prytanae- 
um, Erechtheum, Propylaea, and Parthenon, can easily 
be reconstructed in the imagination of any student of 
Greek history with the aid of their wonderful ruins. 
And when those colossal edifices stand forth in their 
beauty, it is but a step to the sublimest dreams, wherein 
Socrates, Anaxagoras, Pericles, Eschylus, Sophocles, 
Ictinus, Mnesicles, and their noble cotemporaries, 
walked through the colonnades, along the paved streets, 
and among the verdant, classic groves which bordered 
on the Ilissus. The walls of Athens, extending from 
Hymettus to the distant sea, the city crowded with the 
wealth of the commercial world, and- the fields as 
verdant and fruitful as now. 

Mr. Taylor often remarked that he should never 
have been a successful traveller had he not been a poet ; 
and it might be added that persons, in whom the 
power to recall the past through the debris of the 
present is wholly lacking, had better not travel at all. 
There are hills in Pennsylvania, or New Hampshire, 
far more picturesque than the Acropolis, and on them 
might be erected a tolerably accurate copy of the Pro 
pylsea, Erechtheum, and Parthenon as they now stand, 
and the curious might visit them to observe the beauty 
of the architecture and remark the foolishness of those 
who constructed them. Unconnected with any history, 
and the originals unheard of, they would be nothing 
but mere monuments to folly, with all their symmetry. 
Take away from Athens the yecovds of its grand 



272 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

humanity ; the stories of its achievements ; the tales 
concerning the wonders of its genius ; the renown of 
its arms ; the memories of its misfortunes ; and all 
tbe life, the spirit, that shines through its fragments, 
as the soul beams through the eye of a loved face, 
would be extinguished, and no great good could come 
from seeing them. 

We mention these things, not to excuse Mr. Taylor 
for his strong assertions concerning the effect these 
ruins had upon him, but to give to the student a clearer 
insight into the nature and life of the poet. Bayard 
Taylor. From Athens, after visiting the king and 
queen, Mr. Taylor made excursions into the interior, 
and to the Island of Crete, visiting, in his various tours, 
Candia, Khithymnos, Corinth, Leuctra, Mycenae, Ar- 
cadia, Sparta, Parnassus, Tlatea, Thermopylae, and 
various other fields, mountains, and ruins connected 
with ancient Greece. At Crete he was most graciously 
welcomed by the Turkish governor, and was treated 
with the most generous hospitality hy the people and 
officials, throughout a somewhat lengthy journey about 
the island. It was there that he met the American 
consul who was going to start the commerce of Crete 
by bringing in a cargo of rum to exchange for the 
products of the island, and who was so startled by 
Mr. Taylor's frankly avowed hope, that the ship would 
be wrecked before the curse of drunkenness was added 
to the other Cretan vices. Mr. Taylor gave a somewhat 
different version of the affair, not changing however 



INTERIOR OF GREECE. 



273 



its exposition of his sentiments on the subject of 
drunkenness. But it is to be supposed, that the con- 
sul, who was so severely rebuked, would have the 
best reason for remembering it, and, as his version 
throws no discredit on Mr. Taylor, and varies in no 
important particular from that given by Mr. Taylor, 
we give the consul the benefit of the story. 

At Corinth he had a startling experience in an earth- 
quake, feeling the earth rise and fall with that sicken- 
iug movement, creating a nausea like the sea-sickness 
of a whole voyage concentrated into a few minutes, and 
saw the stone walls of the house crumbling and split- 
ting about him. He arrived after the greatest shock 
liad passed, or he would have seen whole streets of 
buildings thrown down, for the village was half in 
ruins when he reached the place. Near Corinth he 
saw the plain whereon were celebrated the Isthmian 
games and repeated sections of Schiller's poem, " The 
Gods of Greece." 

At Argolis he saw the gateway of Mycenre, guarded 
by the celebrated stone lions, and tried to connect 
Agamemnon and Orestes with the landscapes. 

At Sparta he trod the sward above the buried 
palaces, and having no poets' names to rhyme with 
Lycurgus and Leonidas, he hurried on to scenes less 
suggestive of mere physical endurance and bloody 
encounters. 

In Mania, within the boundaries of ancient Sparta, 
be was delighted to find the descendants of the ancient 



274 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Greeks, -whose blood was not diluted by that of Turks, 
Slavs, Italians, and Egyptians. He found there what 
no other part of Greece visited by him could boast, 
the Greek face and form such as Phidias, Praxiteles, 
and Lysippus portrayed in their immortal sculptures. 
At Olympia he saw the "home of Xenophon, and the 
foundations of that temple of Olympus from whence 
the Greek chronology was taken, near which were 
celebrated the great Olympian Games, around which 
were once those sacred groves so often mentioned in 
Greek poetry and tragedy, and where the most artistic 
work of Phidias stood, — the ivory statue of Jupiter. 

At Thebes he recalled the deeds of Pindar, Epami- 
Dondas, and the heroes of the Trojan War. 

At Delphi he looked over the forests that clothe the 
lofty Parnassus, gazed into the rocky cleft from which 
the priestesses received their communications, and saw 
the sites of temples used for gardens, and blocks from 
the sacred shrines used for cellar walls. 

At Thermopylae he marked the spot where the heroes 
fought and the narrow gorge where they fell, with feel- 
ings of respect and pride. He said that the story of 
such deeds should never be allowed to die. 

At " Aulis " he saw where Jason launched his ships 
to sail in search of the Golden Fleece, and repeated a 
part of the Argonautic story in modern Greek. 

On all these journeys Mr. Taylor displayed the same 
fearless, adventurous spirit, and was frequently in 
danger. By fortunate accidents he was prevented 



RETURJ!f TO ATHENS. 275 



from falling into the hands of brigands, and re- 
turned to Athens, after his prolonged journeys, in 
good health, and with the accounts of his journeys 
nearly complete in his pocket. 

When he left Athens in the spring for Constanti- 
nople, he had become acquainted with all parts of ancient 
Greece, and was able to give to his readers a fund of 
valuable information concerning the country and its 
products, the people and their industries. He had 
kept up that triple life which characterized all his later 
travels in Europe and Asia, and saw everything modern 
in the way of manners, races, products, commerce, 
government, and everything that remained of the 
ancient days in the shape of monuments, temples, or 
•uins, together with those undefinable yet real sugges- 
icns which come to the poet, and to him alone. 



276 LirE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

From Constantinople to Golha. — Visit to Russia. — Moscow and 
St. Petersburg. — Return to Prussia. — Arrival in the United 
States. — Incessant Work. — Lecturing and Travels in Cali- 
fornia. — The Construction of Cedarcroft. — His Patriotic Ad- 
dresses and Poems. — Visits Germany in 18G1. — Anxiety foi 
the Fate of His Nation. — Life at Cedarcroft. 

After a short stay in Constantinople, the party, 
under the guidance of Mr. Taylor, went by steamer to 
the mouth of the Danube, and thence up that river to 
his new home at Gotha. Mr. Taylor had set his heart 
on building a residence in the oak woodland near his 
old home at Kennett, and now that he was married, 
his anxiety to see it completed led him to think 
seriously of returning at once to the United States. 
Having, however, a vague fear that he might not again 
visit Europe as a traveller, and being unwilling to 
leave the largest empire in the world un visited, he 
resolved to make a hasty trip to Moscow and St. 
Petersburg. It was not a tour which he would per- 
sonally enjoy as he had his stay in Greece, yet it was 
needed to make complete his knowledge of Europe. 
Hence he hastened away from Gotha, and, taking 
Cracow, the salt mines of Wieliczka and Warsaw in 
bis route, arrived at Moscow about the middle of 



IN RUSSIA. 277 

June. Having seen the wonders of that ancient cap- 
ital of Russia, he went by railroad direct to St. Peters- 
burg. There he was much interested in the massive 
structures of granite and marble which stand over the 
land which was once an impassable marsh, and pon- 
dered, with feelings of great wonder, upon the control 
which man exercises over nature. The grand squares, 
the wide Boulevards, the ponderous bridges, the ex- 
tensive palaces, the solid cathedral, and the broad 
quays and docks, give an impression of grandeur in 
simplicity, which no other city possesses. The great 
capital has none of that air of gaj^ety and ostentation 
which one notices in Paris and London ; but is stately, 
dignified, grand. Everything is done on a large scale, 
and the buildings, halls, streets, and parades, arc alike 
suggestive of might, and a strong will. The city is 
Peter the Great in stone. It conveys the impression 
to the traveller, of strength without coarseness, and of 
beauty without display. 

Little did Mr. Taylor expect, when he bade those 
extensive, massive palaces adieu, that he should return 
to that city, in a few years, as the official representa- 
tive of a powerful nation. Probably the idea of being 
again in those galleries of art, was as remote from his 
calculations as was the idea of being minister of the 
United States at the court of the German Empire, 
when he walked reverently along the Unter-den-Lin- 
den at Berlin for the first time, trying to get a peep at 
the distant carriage of the king. 



278 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

From St. Petersburg, he took the inland route for 
Prussia, passing through the Baltic provinces, and 
studying the habits and appearance of the people. 
His return to Gotha, from Russia, was regarded by 
himself, and by his friends, as the close of his wander- 
ings, and, with a sigh of relief, he laid down his pen, 
and declared that he wished for nothing more than to 
" settle down in a home of his own near the old farm 
in the States." A few weeks later, and he was receiv- 
ing the congratulations of his friends in New York, 
and had taken his place at the familiar desk in the 
office of the New York "Tribune." 

Then begran another season of closest and severest 
mental labor. Rest, during his waking hours, seemed 
impossible, and even the hours which he spent at the 
Literary Club and at his rooms, were more or less con- 
nected with his work. Literature was his work, and 
literature was his play. He had become enamored of 
Goethe and Schiller, and already conceived the idea of 
giving to the world a translation of their best works. 
He had the "Argument" of the "Poet's Journal" in 
bis mind, and every visit to the scenes of his first love, 
in the companionship of the second, served to urge 
him to complete and publish it. 

He had become one of the noted men of America, 
and the calls to lecture, to write, to visit, to attend 
dinners, and write editorials, were incessant and per- 
sistent. 

The construction of his house took much of his 



BUILDING A HOUSE. 279 

attention, and he ransacked his collections of sketches, 
and photographs of villas, palaces, and cottages in the 
Old World, to find such a plan as he could be satisfied 
to adopt. It was no child's play with him to construct 
the building wherein to make his home. He had 
thought of the matter from boyhood, and that clump 
of oaks on the highland, about a mile to the westward 
of Kennett Square, and within a short distance of the 
old homsetead, had ever been his choice. His years 
of wanderings had sharpened his desire for a perma- 
nent home, and, with characteristic care and thorough- 
ness, he investigated his plans and means. He had 
owned the land for five years, and had gloried in being 
the owner of American soil, without which one can 
hardly claim to be an American. He attended to all 
the details of rooms, closets, stairways, windows, brick, 
stone, cornices, roof, tower, with caution and delibera- 
tion ; and when he contracted with the masons, carpen- 
ters, and gardeners, he knew just what was needed, and 
told to each what was expected of them. There was 
a ceremony attendant on breaking the ground, a pro- 
cession, and a box of records deposited in the founda- 
tion, when the corner-stone was laid, and such a house- 
warming when it was dedicated October 18 and 19, 
1860, as Americans seldom enjoy. There was feast- 
ing, singing, original poetry, original plays, and one 
of the happiest, merriest companies ever gathered 
under a hospitable roof. 

But while the building was being slowly and care- 



280 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOfe. 

fully constructed, with its thick walls of stone and 
brick, Mr Taylor, was engaged no less in his editorial 
tasks. The summer after his return from Europe, he 
made several excursions in an editorial capacity, one 
of which took him again to California. The great 
changes in the city of San Francisco, and in the 
appearance of the entire State, so far as he visited it, 
were marvellous, and were as marvellously pictured to 
the minds of his readers. His time was much occupied 
in delivering lectures in the various cities of the State ; 
but he used his disciplined eyes and ears to such advan- 
tage that he gave in his book the most full and accurate 
account of California, — its agriculture, its institu- 
tions, its lakes, its mountains, its great trees, its mines, 
its enterprises, and its people, — to be found in any 
work of the kind now in print. It is astonishing how 
much he could put into a paragraph, without giving 
it a crowded appearance I 

His time, from the day he returned from California, 
was mostly engaged in delivering lectures and writing 
letters. He was not rich, and he was generous. He 
had a house to build, and to pay for. Furniture must 
be had, and his accumulated fortune was not large 
enough for all. Hence he travelled, and he delivered 
lectures, notwithstanding the disagreeable experiences 
which he was compelled to endure. He yearned to be 
at the translation of "Faust"; but necessity drove 
him to talk of travel and biogniphy. He had a 
home, for "it is home where the heart is," and he 



GEtTlNQ A HOME. 281 

longed to be in it. But necessity sent him forth with 
a rude hand, and held him aloof from his own. Oh ! 
that is the saddest experience in human life ! To feel 
called to a certain work ; to know that there is one 
task for which one is peculiarly fitted by nature and 
by discipline ; to see before him still the beckoning 
forms which have hovered in the glory of every set- 
ting sun, since earliest childhood ; to feel that one's 
productions, which might be valuable, are unfinished, 
and hardly shaped, before they are forced into the hands 
of conscienceless critics, is one of the most miserable 
conditions in life. This condition, which has worn 
out so many men of genius, and which has, with 
tyrannical coldness, compelled authors to fence up their 
own literary highway, or die, was not felt by Mr. 
Taylor in that degree that it was by some of his co- 
temporaries, and by many since his time. But he felt it 
often enough and keenly enough to sympathize with 
others, and most forcibly expressed their feelings 
in his "Picture of Saint John." 

"But soon assailed my home the need of gold, 
The miserable wants that plague and fret, 

Repeated ever, battling with our hold 

On all immortal aims, lest, overbold 
lu arrogance of gift, we dare forget 

The balanced curse ; ah, me ! that finest powers, 
Must stoop to menial services, and set 

Their growth below the unlaborious flowers." 

Yet manfully did he toil, neglecting sleep and food, 
eager to teach, determined to earn honestly the money 



282 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

which he was to receive. He desired to have a home 
free from debt, to which he could invite his friends, 
and feel that his hospitality could be safely and hon- 
estly extended to all those whom he loved and honored. 
So he toiled, as men seldom toil, using every moment on 
railway and steamboat, to write out those pages which 
his engagements prevented him from doing at home. 
As a consequence, his health began to decline, and oft- 
repeated warnings of friends and of physicians, which 
he tried to keep from the knowledge of his relatives, 
drove him from the lucrative field of lecturing. 

With his face set, steadfastly set, toward the tombs of 
Goethe and of Schiller, seeing the great obligation he 
was under, to a Providence which had so richly en- 
dowed him, to give to man some masterpiece, he turned 
at once toward his loved Germany, when he felt the 
necessity of a change of home, and a change of work. 

But the exciting events immediately preceding the 
War of the Great Rebellion, so stirred his patriotic 
soul, that he turned his thought and work into patriotic 
channels, and worked on until late in the spring of 
1861. His words in the newspapers, in the maga- 
zines, and on the rostrum, were ringing trumpet-calls 
to the defence of the Republic. The Chinese say that 
*Hhere are words which are deeds." That could be 
said of those Mr. Taylor uttered. His public ad- 
dresses were enthusiastic appeals for the salvation of 
the nation, and his poems had in them the boldest 
spirit of patriotism. 



HIS PATRIOTISM. 283 

In his poem, "Through Baltimore," written in April, 
1861, he described the approach of the Union soldiers 
to Baltimore, the onset of the mob, and closed the 
story with these words : — 

" No, never I By that outrage black, 
A solemn oath we swore, 
To Lring the Keystone's thousands back, 
Strike down the dastards who attack, 
And leave a red and fiery track 
Through Baltimore I 

Bow down, in haste, thy guilty head I 
God's wrath is swift and sore : 

The sky with gathering bolts is red, — 

Cleanse from thy skirts the slaughter shed, 

Or make thyself an ashen bed, 
O Baltimore I 

On the 30th of April, 1861, he wrote an address to the 
American people, the last verse of which expressed the 
sentiment of the whole poem and we insert it here : — 

" Slow to resolve, be swift to do ! 
Teach ye the False how fight the True I 
How bucklered Perfidy shall feel 
In her black heart the Patriot's steel ; 
How sure the bolt that Justice wings ; 
How weak the arm a traitor brings ; 
How mighty they, who steadfast stand 
For Freedom's Flag and Freedom's Land I " 

But the poem which created the greatest enthusiasm 
at the time of its publication, and which is still a most 



284 LtfE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

touchingly inspiring selection, was written at about 
the same time as the "Address to the American Peo- 
ple," possibly ten days later, and it was given the title 
of "Scott and the Veteran." To fully appreciate the 
power of those verses, one needs to recall the hesita- 
tion, and the excitement, and the uncertainty which the 
nation felt in that dark hour. In a time like that, a 
few clear, unmistakable words work wonders with a 
people. Well does the writer recall the electrical effect 
of that poem m 1861, when read at a patriotic gather- 
ing of the yeomen, in a valley of the Berkshire 
Hills, in Western Massachusetts. The lines were not 
so polished, nor the words so choice as many other 
verses which Mr. Taylor had written ; but they seem 
to come again as they ^vere then recited, and awaken 
memories of mountain glens, and " mountain boys " ; 
of camps and battles, of fields of cotton made fields 
of carnage ; of loved faces looking skyward, cold and 
still; of a nation saved, redeemed, renewed. The 
three closing verses we have never forgotten. 



" If they should fire ou Pickens, let the Colonel in command 
Put me upon the rampart, with the flagstaff in my hand : 
No odds how hot the cannon-smoke, or how the shells may fly ; 
I '11 hold the Stars and Stripes aloft, and hold them till I die ! 

I'm ready. General, so you let a post to me be given, 

Where Washington can see me, as he looks from highest heaven, 

And say to Putnam at his side, or, may be. General Wayne ; 

* There stands old Billy Johnson, that fought at Lundy's Lane ! ' 



VISIT TO GERMANY. 285 

And when the fight is hottest, before the traitors fly, 

When shell and ball are screeching and bursting in the sky, 

If any shot should hit me, and lay me on ray face, 

My soul would go to Washington's, and not to Arnold's place f " 

Id June, the necessity of rest, and the desire to 
obtain it in such a way as to get pleasure and advan- 
tage from his release, influenced him to take a trip to 
his wife's old home, and to spend a month at the country 
residence of a friend which was situated on slopes of 
the Thuringian Forest, not far from Weimar and Gotha. 
It was a lovely spot, and a pretty cottage, and about 
him were numberless reminders of Schiller and Goethe, 
with whose names he was so creditably to connect his 
own. Whether he gained the rest he needed or not, 
is a question still undecided. Certainly he did not 
gain as much as he would, had he left Goethe's 
** Faust," and his own new volume of poems behind 
him, and chafed much less under his great suspense 
concerning the results of the American War. He 
ran up the American flag to the ridge-pole of his cot- 
tage, and walked about uneasily, awaiting news from 
home. He talked of the war with his neighbors and 
visitors, wrote about it to whomsoever of his friends 
he thousjht m'.;yhf not understand the merits of the 
contest, and, at last, about tub 1st of August, hastily 
broke up his cosy housekeeping, and returned to 
America. 

AVhen he again opened the doors of his dwelling j«t 
Iveunett, which he had given the poetical name of 



286 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

" Cedarcroft," it was to welcome to his fireside all who 
loved their country. But, as he afterwards proudly 
declared, no traitor ever crossed its threshold. Many 
distinguished men visited him, including members of 
Congress, and of the President's Cabinet. 



SECRETARY OF LEGATION. 287 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Appointed as Secretary of Legation. — Life in St. Petersburg.— 
Literary Labors. — His Home at Kennett. — Publication of bis 
Poems. — Visits Iceland. — His Poem at tbe Millennial Celebra- 
tion. — Appointment as Minister to Berlin. — His Congratula- 
tions. — Reception at Berlin. — His Death. 

In the summer of 1862, Mr. Taylor accepted the 
appointment as Secretary of Legation at St. Peters- 
burg, Russia, for which he was indebted to his life-long 
friend, the Hon. George H. Boker, of Philadelphia, 
whose services to the nation as Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary, as well as his gifts as an author, have made his 
name familiar to the reading public of America. 

It does not appear that the official duties connected 
with his office especially pleased Mr. Taylor, and it is 
believed by his friends that he regarded them in about 
the same light that Hawthorne looked upon his office. 
It was an honorable and responsible position, espe- 
cially so during 1862 and 1863, when the United States 
was laboring so earnestly, and finally so successfully, 
to gain the friendship of Russia, and Mr. Taylor ap- 
preciated it. Certainly the American Legation at St. 
Petersburg was never more popular at the Court of the 
Emperor than during the term of Mr. Taylor's sojourn. 



288 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Whatever the credit which is due to the Minister dur- 
ing his stay, it is no disparagement to sa}'' that Mr. 
Taylor made many warm friends in St. Petersburg, 
who remember him, and weep for his untimely death. 
When the duties of the Legation devolved entirely upon 
him, as charge d^affairs, he was treated with the great- 
est consideration, and for a time the court circles 
believed that the President of the United States would 
promote him to the office of Ambassador, as appeared 
to them to be his due. 

But Mr. Taylor was in no wise an office-seeker, and 
cared more for the honor of writing a good book than 
for any office in the gift of the President. So the 
autumn, winter, and spring which Mr. Taylor spent in 
St. Petersburg were devoted to his studies of litera- 
ture, so far as he could do so without neglecting his 
duties. He made several excursions into the interior 
of Russia, and made himself acquainted with the 
lanffuaofe and writinjjs of Russian authors. Work ! 
work ! work ! Incessantly writing, reading, or ob- 
serving: ! Such was his life in St. Petersbur^r. His 
envious critics have said that his genius all lay in the 
ability to do hard work. But does not successful hard 
work exhibit genius in its greatest strength ? Some 
may, in one dash, make themselves famous. Authors 
may concentrate all their power in a single leap, and 
reach the heights of fame at one bound. But of such 



LITERARY WORK. 289 

men you seldom hear a second success. Their single 
work is all that they do well. Not so with Mr. Tay- 
lor. The publication of one book only left the way 
clear for a better successor. His Muse was not uncer- 
tain, his genius was not spasmodic. Two of his 
poems, written in Russia, namely, "The Neva," and 
"A Thousand Years," were afterwards translated into 
Russian, and received the hearty encomiums of the 
cultured nobility. His story of "Beauty and the 
Beast," located at Novgorod, to which place Mr. Tay- 
lor made an excursion while connected with the Ameri- 
can Legation at St. Petersburg, has also been trans- 
lated into the Russian language, together with other 
selections from his writings, showing that his literary 
renown did not suffer by his residence in Russia. 

But his highest ambition in life was to publish a 
worthy translation of Goethe and Schiller, together with 
a biography of both. This had been his purpose from 
the time he first visited Weimar and Gotha. To this 
his other labors became gradually subordinated. 

How he came to turn his attention to prose fiction 
can be accounted for on the supposition that he adopted 
that character for the purpose of testing his own 
powers, and securing an income which would enable 
him to prosecute his studies and investigations relating 
to Goethe and Schiller. He did not hope to be a lead- 
ing novelist, and the public placed a much higher esti- 



290 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

mate on his novels than he did. The desire he had to 
immortalize his old home, the urgent appeals of friends, 
and the advice of acquaintances, pressed him into a 
field which he confessed in his lectures was uncon- 
genial. Yet he had no more reason to be ashamed of 
** Hannah Thurston," "John Godfrey's Fortunes," and 
the "Story of Kennett," brought out soon after his 
return from Russia, than he had thirteen or fourteen 
years before to be ashamed of the Jenny Lind prize- 
song, or the poem delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa 
Society of Harvard College. 

After leaving Russia, he soon returned to the United 
States, and, with lecturing and writing, occupied the 
time until again called abroad by a desire to see some 
localities visited by Goethe, and describe the great 
Paris Exhibition of 1867. Then followed those years 
of work at home, and travel abroad and at home, as 
his duties as author, editor, and correspondent de- 
manded. In 1866 appeared his poem, "Picture of 
St. John," which was immediately translated into 
Italian by an admirer in Florence. His poem, "The 
Ballad of Abraham Lincoln," appeared in 1869, 
"Goethe's Faust," in 1871, "The Masque of the 
Gods," in 1872, "Lars, a Pastoral of Norway," in 
1873, "The Prophet, a Tragedy," in 1874, and "Home 
Pastorals, Ballads, and Lyrics," in 1875. 

In the spring of 1874, Mr. Taylor visited Iceland aa 



IN ICEI.AND. 291 



the correspondent of the New York "Tribune." He 
had visited Egypt, and was to return to America 
after a short stay in Europe, but the news of the 
Millennial Celebration, which was to take place on the 
island August 2d and 3d, called a large number ot 
people to the festivities, and it was fitting that a great 
American newspaper should be represented. But 
neither the people of Iceland, nor the editors of the 
"Tribune," nor Mr. Taylor, had any idea, when he 
set out, that his visit would be magnified into a, rec- 
ognition of the event by the people of the United 
slates. His knowledge of the Danish language, and 
his study of the Icelandic tongue, according to his 
plan laid in Copenhagen eighteen years before, when 
on his way to the Northern Ocean, made him peculiarly 
fitted for the position in which he was, by a conjunc- 
tion of unforeseen circumstances, unexpectedly thrown. 
But his genius was as spontaneous as it was persever- 
ing; for in a few moments of time, amid confusion, 
and conversation in which he took part, he wrote the 
poem, "America to Iceland," which, when read to the 
Icelanders in their own language, on the occasion of 
their largest gathering, created the greatest enthusi- 
asm. One verse ran thus, — 

" Hail, mother-land of Skalds and heroes, 
By love of freedom hither hurled ; 
Fire in their hearts as in their mountains, 
And strength like thine to shake the world! " 



292 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR 

Mr. Taylor's printed description of the scenery, 
people, government, and geysers of Iceland, is a stand- 
ard work on that almost unknown island, and is writ- 
ten in a vein readable and refined. As it shows rather 
the fruit of a cultured life than the processes of culture, 
its contents require no extended notice in a work like 
this. 

In the winter (February) of 1878, President Hayes 
offered Mr. Taylor the vacant mission at Berlin, ex- 
pressing, at the same time, his conviction that there 
was no other American living who could so nobly and 
creditably fill the position of Minister of the United 
States to the German Empire. Mr. Taylor's fame 
as a German scholar ; his relation, by marriage, to the 
German people ; his popularity at home and in Ger- 
many ; and his creditable performance of his duties in 
a like position at St. Petersburg, made it peculiarly 
fitting that ho should represent the American people in 
that official capacity. 

It was an office unsought by Mr. Taylor, but, never- 
theless, it was most cheerfully accepted, as it would 
give him an opportunity to prosecute his studies of the 
life of Goethe and the life of Schiller, which could not 
be so well secured in any other way. 

The announcement of the appointment was hailed by 
the people of the United States with the liveliest 
demonstrations of approval. Neither the appointment 



MINISTER AT BERLIN. 293 

of Mr. Bancroft or Mr. Motley received such universal 
approbation. All the newspapers, with no known ex- 
ception, declared it to be one of the wisest appoint- 
ments made by the administration. All parties ap- 
plauded at home, and the leading journals of Europe 
mentioned it with words of praise. 

Mr. Taylor w^as overwhelmed with congratulations, 
and President Hayes received letters from almost every 
State and city in the Republic, thanking him for mak- 
uig such a creditable selection, and commending his 
wisdom. Mr. Taylor was feasted, and *' toasted" by 
his commercial and literary friends with an enthusiasm 
and liberality never known before on such an occasion. 
Ovation after ovation was given, and his departure 
in April from New York was witnessed by hosts of 
his friends. 

Ilis welcome at Berlin was scarcely less hearty. 
Authors and editors received him with earnest expres- 
sions of satisfaction. The Crown Prince, Prince Bis- 
marck, and even the Emperor and Empress greeted 
him with most unusual marks of respect. With a 
world looking to him for yet greater things, but 
thankful for the noble deeds of the past, Mr. Taylor 
set up a home at Berlin in which he hoped to finish 
those books on Goethe and Schiller, to which he had 
already given some of the best years of his life. At 
last there was rest. Honored by his nation, holdino 



294 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

a literary position above the darts of envy, with a 
gifted wife and lovely daughter, he entered his home 
in Berlin, saying, "Here I can work in peace. Here 
we shall be very happy." 

Who can foretell the future; or, in the words of 
Goethe's " Mephistopheles," — 

" Who knows how yet the dice may fall T " 

That drear December, of which he had written so 
much, and which ever seemed to him the saddest of all 
the year, found him dangerously ill with the dropsy. 
He tried to be quiet, as the physician directed. He 
tried to resume the old Arabic resignation which had 
so often served him in the place of substantial accom- 
plishment. But the habit of years, the overmastering 
desire to labor, the " passion for work " which made 
his life successful, held sway over him still. 

His nation had commissioned him to serve at the 
Court of Berlin. There was a call for him at the Le- 
gation. He could not refuse to go, if he had the 
strength to move. So he rises from his bed, and goes 
forth to fulfil the desires of his people. It is his last 
work. His beloved America receives his dying atten- 
tion ! The next day (Dec. 19, 1878), just after the 
messenger had left at his door the first printed copy 
of his new work, "Dcukalion," the poet, traveller, 
scholar, patriot, brother, husband, and father, loft 
his work unfinished to enter upon the Eternal Rest. 

He had long suffered from a mild form of a kidney 



HIS DEATH. 295 

disease, but neither he nor his physicians attached any 
importance to that complaint. On the day that he 
died, he arose from his bed, dressed, and received 
visitors. Feeling tired, at noon, he concluded to lie 
down and rest. He slept for a short time, quietly, but 
on awakening, his mind wandered, and his symptons 
became at once alarming. Dr. Lowe Kalbe, who was 
Mr. Taylor's physician, and an old friend, was with 
him, together with Mrs. Taylor and their daugh- 
ter Lillian. But he sank rapidly, and at four o'clock 
in the afternoon, peacefully passed away. 

How like a voice from a living Past came to us hia 
own sad lines, when they said to us in sadness, — 
'* Bayard Taylor is dead ! " 

« I never knew the autumnal eves could wear, 

With all their pomp, so drear a hue of Death ;^ 
I never knew their still and solemn breath "* 
Could rob the breaking heart of strength to bear, 
Feeding the blank submission of despair. 

Yet, peace, sad soul ! Reproach and pity shine. 
Suffused through starry tears : bend thou in prayer. 
Rebuked by Love divine." 

•' Why art thou dead ? Upon the hills once more 
The golden mist of wanmg Autumn lies ; 
The slow-pulsed billows wash along the shore, 

And phantom isles are floating in the skies. 
They wait for thee : a spirit in the sand 

Hushes, expectant for thy coming tread; 
The light wind pants to lift thy trembling hair ; 
Inward, the silent land 
Lies with its mournful woods ;-why art thou dead, 
When Earth demands that thou shalt caU her fair f " 



296 LIFE OF BAYARD TAIXOE. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

His Friends. — The Multitude of Mourners. — His London Acquaint- 
ances. — Tennyson, Cornwall, Browning, Carlyle. — German 
Popularity. — Auerbach. -- Humboldt. — French Authors.— 
Early American Friends. — Stoddard, Willis, Kane, Bryant, 
Halleck, Powers, Greeley, Mrs. Kirkland, Whittier, Longfellow, 
Holmes, Emerson, Lowell, Dana, Alcott, Aldrich, Whipple, 
Curtis, Fields, Boker, Chandler. — Relatives. 

Seldom h:is the death of a single individual vvoundod 
the hearts of so many personal friends. Men have 
attained to greater renown, and have been, perhaps, 
as extensively known by their writings and their fame ; 
but rare, indeed, can be found in history the name of 
one who had so many intimate companions. The 
number of those who claimed the right to be his friends 
is beyond computation, at this time, — within a few 
weeks after his death, — but it includes many of the 
most noted men of the world. 

Alfred Tennyson, the poet-laureate of England, 
was an acquaintance and correspondent of Mr. Taylor's, 
their first meeting being at Mr. Tennyson's house, 
Farrinojford, on the Isle of Wio^ht. 

William Makepeace Thackeray was one of Mr. Tay- 
lor's warmest literary friends, from the time when they 
met at a dinner of the Century Club, in New York, in 



BAVARD TAYLOR'S FRIENDS. 297 

1856, until Mr. Thackemy's death, in 1863. The 
friendship was kept alive by Mr. Thackeray's daugh- 
ters, who first met Mr. Taylor in London, in 1858, and 
who at that time most hospitably entertained him, 
together with his brother and sisters. 

Robert Browning often invited Mr. Taylor to join 
his select company in London, their acquaintance having 
begun in 1851 ; and Barry Cornwall (Bryan Waller 
Procter), treated Mr: Taylor with the greatest kind> 
ness and hospitality, writing frequently, until he died, 
in 1874, to inqnire after Mr. Taylor's progress in the 
translation of "Faust." 

Thomas Carlyle and John Bright were numbered 
among his correspondents, although it so happened 
that he met them but seldom. 

Among the leaders of English literature whose friend- 
ship he enjoyed, there is a very large circle of literary 
and scientific men who knew Mr. Taylor through their 
frequent meetings on social and formal occasions, and 
who were well acquainted with Mr. Taylor's books. 
From many of these there came the expressions of 
great grief, when the fact of Mr. Taylor's death was 
announced in London. 

In Germany he was quite as well known as their 
native poets of his time, and he secured the respect 
and love of nearly every distinguished literary man 
and woman in that Empire. One of the sweetest 
friendships of his life was with that most fascinating 
descriptive writer, Berthold Auerbach, whose "Villa 



298 LIFE OF BAYAllt) TArLOR. 

on the Rhine " was given to the American public in 
1869, by Mr. Taylor. These two authors were like 
twin brothers in their authorship, and some of Auer- 
bach's letters, descriptive of European scenes and 
people, could be inserted in Mr. Taylor's books, ver- 
batim, and the interpolation be scarcely detected. 
Their regard for each other equalled their gifts, and 
one of the sincerest mourners at the funeral of Mr. 
Taylor, was that gifted scholar, Berthold Auerbach. 

Mr. Taylor's first acquaintance with Alexander von 
Humboldt, was in 1856, when Mr. Taylor called upon 
the great naturalist at his home in Berlin. The reading 
of Humboldt's works had been of great benefit to Mr. 
Taylor, as a correspondent, and he so informed the 
Professor, at which he seemed much pleased. Hum- 
boldt took great pains to secure all of Mr. Taylor's 
letters, as they appeared from time to time in the 
"Tribune," and most warmly praised him for the re- 
markable manner in which he pictured the scenes he 
visited. The acquaintance was freqently renewed, and 
when Humboldt died, in 1859, Mr. Taylor is said to 
have been numbered among the mourning friends, by 
those in charge of the funeral, although he was in the 
United States at the time. For years the public 
in America was led to believe that Humboldt ridiculed 
Mr. Taylor's writings, although what could have been 
the motive of the one who originated the falsehood it 
is hard to conjecture. 

With the French authors he did not have a very 



rtllENDSHiP WITH AUTHORS. 299 

extended personal acquaintance, although he had met 
many of them, and frequently exchanged books with 
Victor Hugo and Guillaume Lejean. 

His acquaintances in America included nearly every 
living author of his generation, and he numbered 
among his intimate friends the most gifted men in the 
land. Nearest to him, perhaps, stood Richard H. Stod- 
dard, of New York, and his talented wife, Elizabeth 
Barstow Stoddard. Both were born in Massachusetts, 
and have frequently spent the summer months at Mrs. 
Stoddard's old home in Mattapoisett, in company with 
Mr. Taylor and his family. A jolly household it was, 
when the Taylors and the Stoddards united their fam- 
ilies, as they frequently did, in the city, or on the sea- 
shore. One of Mr. Stoddard's many books, viz., the 
Life of Humboldt, contains an introduction by Mr. 
Taylor, and many of Mr. Taylor's poems were sub- 
mitted to Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard for their criticism, 
before he published them. With them, and with Mr. 
George Ripley, he appears to have maintained the most 
confidential relations to the day of his death. 

Many of his early friends have preceded him to that 
"silent shore," and many tears did he shed over their 
graves. Nathaniel P. Willis, his earliest friend in the 
great city, who encouraged him and introduced him 
into a literary life, died at his home of "Idlewild," in 
1867. Washington Irving, who in his old age was 
earnest enough to leave his home at "Sunnyside" and 
go to New York, to urge Mr. Taylor to persevere io 



300 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

his poetical undertakings, and whose advice assisted 
Mr. Taylor so much in his various trips into Spain, ^ 
died in 1873. 

Dr. E. K. Kane, who aided Mr. Taylor in laying 
out his route through Norway, and whose letters of 
introduction and commendation to George Peabody, 
the great banker, and to other influential men in Eng- 
land, opened the way for Mr. Taylor into the best 
society of that capital, did not live to meet Mr. Taylor 
on his return from Norway, as had been arranged, but 
died alone, at Havana, in 1857. 

William Cullen Bryant, whose master-pieces were 
Mr. Taylor's study, and whose personal friendship was 
so much valued, that Mr. Taylor visited the Berkshire 
Hills of Massachusetts, wherein the "Thanatopsis" 
had its birth, to note "if the scenes would have the 
same influence on a stranger, that they appeared to 
have had on a native," — he whose counsel and com- 
panionship had, through many years, been counted 
among the "richest boons of life," died a few months 
before Mr. Taylor, and the shadow had not passed 
from Mr. Taylor's brow, and his poetical tribute to 
Bryant was hardly in print, before he was culled "to 
join the caravan that moves to that mysterious realm." 

Fitz-Greene Halleck, who used to caution the young 
poet, and who took pride in every new achievement oi 
the traveller, died in 1867. 

Horace Greeley, the editor of the Tribune, whose 
friendship was of the most steady and substantial kind, 



MR. Greeley's friendship. 301 

and for whom Mr. Taylor felt the respect due to a 
parent, expired in 1872. It was when writing of Mr. 
Greeley's death that Mr. Taylor gave the following 
sketch of their friendship : — 

" My own intercourse with him, though often interrupted 
by absence or divergence of labor, was frank at the start, 
and grew closer and more precious with every year. In all 
my experience of men, I have never found one whose primi- 
tive impulses revealed themselves with such marvellous 
purity and sinceritj'. His nature often seemed to me as 
crystal-clear as that of a child. In my 3'ounger and more 
sensitive days, he often gave me a transient wound; but 
such wounds healed without a scar, and I alwa^^s found, after- 
ward, that they came from the lance of a physician, not from 
the knife of an enemy. 

" I first saw Mr. Greeley in June, 1844, when I was a boy 
of nineteen. I applied to him for an engagement to write 
letters to the ' Tribune ' from Germany. His reply was 
terse enough. ' No descriptive letters ! ' he said ; ' I am 
sick of them. When 3'ou have been there long enough to 
know something, send to me, and, if there is anything in 
your letters, I will publish them.' I waited nearly a year, 
and then sent seventeen letters, which were published. 
They were shallow enough, I suspect ; but what might they 
not have been without his warning? 

" Toward the end of 1847, while I was engaged in the 
unfortunate enterprise of trying to estabhsh a weekly paper 
at PhoenixAille, Penn., I wrote him — foreseeing the failure 
of my hopes — asking his assistance in procuring literary 
work in New York. He advised me (as I suspect he has 



302 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

advised thousands of young men) , to stay in the country. 
But I had stayed in the country, and a year too long ; so 
another month found me in New York, in his office, with my 
story of disappointment, and my repeated request for his 
favorable influence. ' I think you are mistaken,' he said ; 
' but I will bear you in mind, if I hear of any chance.' 

" Six weeks afterward, to my great surprise (for I sup- 
posed he had quite forgotten me) , he sent for me and offered 
me a place on the ' Tribune.' I worked hard and inces- 
santly during the summer of 1848, hearing never a word of 
commendation or encouragement ; but one day in October 
he suddenly came to my desk, laid his hand on my shoulder, 
and said, ' You have been faithful ; but now you need rest. 
Take a week's holiday, and go into New England.' I 
obeyed, and found, on m}^ return, that he had ordered my 
salary to be increased." 

Hiram Powers, the American sculptor, who so 
heartily welcomed the young pedestrian to Florence, 
Italy, and who through the years which followed, 
showed a most kindly spirit, making Taylor his guest 
and confidant, passed away from the contemplation of 
beautiful earthly forms to figures angelic, in 1873. 

Mrs. Kirkland, on whose magazine, in 1848, he 
began to regain the literary prestige which the failure 
of the " Phoenixville Pioneer '' took from him, and who, 
with Halleck, so kindly opened the way for him to 
teach a school in New York, to repair his shattered 
fortunes, was gone, together with a large number of 
their mutual acquaintances in the literary circles of 
New York. 



LITERARY FRIENDS. 303 

Although the ranks were so sadly depleted, there 
are still living a most brilliant company of his early 
literary friends. 

John G. Whittier, who still resides in Amesbury, 
his patriotism unabated, his Quaker simplicity un- 
changed, and his fame as a poet increasing, as civiliza- 
tion and freedom extend. To him Mr. Taylor dedi- 
cated his poem of "Lars," and in it thus mentioned 
his first meeting with Whittier : — 

" Though many years my heart goes back, 
Through checkered years of loss and gain, 
To the fair landmark on its track, 
When first, upon the Merrimack, 
Upon the cottage roof I heard the autumn rain. 
A hand that welcomed and that cheered. 
To one unknown didst thou extend ; 
Thou gavest hope to song that feared ; 
But now by Time and Faith endeared, 
I claim the right to call the Poet, Friend ! " 

Thus did a Quaker write of a Quaker in dedicating a 
Quaker poem. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lives and sings as 
in those days when Taylor read the story of " Hyperion'* 
and the poetry of " Voices of the Night," and resolved 
to visit Boppart and to be a poet. Mr. Longfellow 
had a name to be envied in the annals of literature, 
when the man of whom we write was a rollicking, 
mischievious boy. Yet Taylor has appeared on the 
stage of life, has enacted a very important part, and 
is gone. His friend and benefactor remains, loved 
and honored in the old Washington mansion at 
Cambridge. 



304 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOB. 

That marvellously versatile and skilful man, Dr 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, though born long before 
Taylor, still walks the halls of learning, and, while 
enjoying the deserved rewards of "The Autocrat of 
the Breakfast-Table," "Old Ironsides," and the numer- 
ous other publications in the shape of essays, poems, 
and medical text-books, was not ashamed to be called 
the friend of Mr. Taylor, and recalls his association 
with him in the most affectionate terms. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the poet and essayist, who, 
like Mr. Holmes, enjoys a world-wide reputation as a 
man of letters and thoughts, moves among men as of 
yore, while his younger acquaintance has passed on 
before . 

James Russell Lowell, upon whose brilliant literary 
career Mr. Taylor said he often "gazed with bewilder- 
ment," but who was among his much-loved literary 
friends, adorns the court of Spain, as the Minister of 
the United States, while the life of his colleague which 
began much later, has ceased to move his hands to 
friendly grasps, and his lips to living words. 

Richard H. Dana, Sr., the "eldest poet," has been 
dead but a few days. Amos Bronson Alcott retains 
his home in Concord, appearing much as he did when 
George Ripley, Margaret Fuller, and Theodore Parker 
were with him on the "Dial," which the Taylors read 
in Pennsylvania ; but he who came to their homes so 
short a time ago, will cross their thresholds no more. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich remains, and writes on for 



LITERARY FRIENDS. 305 

the love of it, while his friend and early companion in 
New York, — Taylor, who praised his "Babie Bell " and 
"Daisie's Necklace," has laid down his pen forever, and 
will sit down with him no more at social boards. 

George William Curtis, who was born the year 
before Mr. Taylor, and whose travels, books, and cor- 
respondence for the New York "Tribune," gave him 
such a similar experience, now stands at the front in 
American oratory, and looks forward to wider fields of 
usefulness, as though life had just begun. As a rep- 
resentative American in literature and in political 
influence, he has lost in Mr. Taylor an earnest and 
efficient comrade. 

Edwin P. Whipple still lives on Beacon Hill in 
Boston, and, together with his brilliant wife, recalls the 
face and words of Taylor with the affectionate regard 
of appreciative minds and loving hearts. 

James T. Fields, of Boston, comes and goes, an 
authority on literary excellence, and an attractive 
expounder and biographer, while the boy who came to 
him long, long ago, to learn if Ticknor & Fields 
would publish a little poem, has grown into manhood, 
into fame, and passed on to the Hereafter. The friend- 
ship of many years, — so beautiful a sight between 
publisher and poet, — which the pressure and un- 
certainty of business could not sever or decrease, is 
broken, ah I so rudely, by the hand of death. 

The Hon. George H. Boker, of Philadelphia, still 
counts his useful years ; while the boy whose poems be 

10 



306 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOB. 

purchased, and whose ambition he directed, has seen a 
long and eventful life, using but a part of the time in 
which his benefactor has lived. Of him Mr. Taylor 
wrote in 1855 : — 

" You were the mate of my poetic Bpring ; 
To you its buds, of little worth, concealed 
More than the summer years have since revealed, 
Or doubtful autumn from the stem shall fling. 
But here they are, the buds, the blossoms blown, 
Or rich or scant the wreath is at your feet; 
And though it were the freshest ever grown, 
To you its incense could not be more sweet. 
Since with it goes a love to match your own, 
A heart, dear friend, that never falsely beat." 

George H. Boker, Jr., and Mrs. Taylor are, by the 
terms of Mr. Taylor's will, his literary executors. 

The Hon. J. R. Chandler still resides in the same 
old home at Philadelphia, into which the trembling 
youth came for the loan of fifty dollars with which tc 
see Europe on foot. After a long and honorable life 
he sees no act more creditable than the simple-hearted 
generosity which he displayed toward that ambitious 
stripling. 

His brother, J. Howard Taylor, M.D. , and his cousin, 
Franklin Taylor, M. D., are both at their official posts 
of honor in Philadelphia, while the sisters and parents 
survive, still in that haze of doubt which precedes the 
hard realization that Bayard is dead. 

Mr. Whitelaw Reid may search long before he sup- 
plies to the "Tribune's "readers all the characteristics of 



HIS FRIENDS. 307 

Mr. Taylor's writings ; the literati of Philadelphia, 
New York, and Boston, will long wait for the conge- 
nial companion to take his seat ; and the thousands of 
loving hearts in all the civilized countries of the world 
and in many uncivilized lands, will not cease to be 
sore, until 

"The stern genius, to whose hollow tramp 
Echo the startled chambers of the soul, 

Waves his inverted torch o'er that pale camp, 
Where the archangers final trumpets rolL" 



308 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Translations of " Faust." — A Life-work. — Discouragements. — The 
Scenes in "Faust." — The Difficulties. — Magnitude of the Work. — 
Perseverance. — The Lives of Goethe and Schiller. — Years in 
the Work. — The Estimate hy Scholars. — Dies with the Work 
Unfinislied 

" Who bath not won a name, ana seeKs not noble works, 

Belongs but to the elements." 

— Faust. 

Some portions of Bayard Taylor's life have been 
but lightly touched upon in the previous chapters, 
because the writer felt that if mentioned in their 
chronological order, he would be compelled to repeat 
them when he should reach this chapter. In fact, the 
history of Taylor's translation of "Faust," which we 
propose here to outline, so far as we have been able to 
learn it, necessarily includes the w^hole life of Mr. 
Taylor, from his first visit to Germany to the day 
when his mortal body gave way under its accumulated 
load of work. "Faust" was intimately interwoven with 
all the threads of his life ; and whenever Messrs. 
Houghton, Osgood & Co. publish another edition of 
Taylor's translation, they could not better please and 
instruct the public than by prefacing it with a synopsis 
of Mr. Taylor's life, wherein "Faust" was his inspira- 
tjou and guide. 



Goethe's faust. 309 

It appears that when he began the study of the 
German language at Heidelberg, one of the books used 
by him contained a selection from the First Part of 
Goethe's " Faust." His instructors and companions there 
were delighted with Goethe's works, and, with pride, 
mentioned him as Germany's greatest man. Meeting 
him, as it did, on the very threshold of the language, 
at a time when there was a romance about the country, 
and a fascination in the language which only youth- 
ful ambition could give, he was ambitious to know 
more about the master-mind, and sought those works 
which contained the requisite information. 

At Frankfort, he found the works of Goethe and 
Schiller, and was fortunately a member of a house- 
hold where those authors were admired and often 
quoted. He was told, as he afterwards declared, that 
if he knew enough of German to read Goethe and 
Schiller, it was all that he would need to know of 
the language. How much that remark included he 
did not at the time comprehend, and declared, when 
his translation was in print, thct he did not feel sure 
that he was able to read all of Goethe as Goethe 
intended it should be read, and that there were very 
few Germans who understood the wonderful figures 
and metaphors found in Goethe's " Faust." Being of an 
ambitious temperament, which would not be satisfied 
with any half-performed task, but which, neverthe- 
less, aimed at the highest achievements, he conceived 
the idea, as early as 1850, of translating into English 



310 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

the greatest work of Goethe. He could not at that 
time comprehend how vast an undertaking he had 
assumed. It required something more than a mere 
knowledge of words to be able to translate accurately 
and fully ; and it was no light task for a person to 
master the common meaning of all the words and 
compounds which Goethe so recklessly used. 

But when it became necessary not only to be able to 
give the meaning of each word by substituting in its 
stead one of another language, but also to give the 
sense and shades of meaning which the words in 
combination convey to a reader of the original, then 
the task became formidable. But that was not all. 
As Goethe, like every great genius, had many eccen- 
tricities, as he drew many of his illustrations from 
events in his own experience and scenes which he had 
visited, it was necessary to a full understanding of the 
great theme, to study Goethe's characteristics, habits 
of thought, education, and experience. 

In short, if one were to translate Goethe, he must be 
like Goethe in experience and mental composition. 
He must know what Goethe knew ; must look upon 
man and his complicated life as Goethe looked upon it 
in his time and circumstances. To the work of educa- 
tion and self-discipline Mr. Taylor applied himself 
most assiduously. 

Twice, when some new difficulty presented itself 
which he had not foreseen, he became discouraged and 
resolved to give up the enterprise. Once was whec 



GOETHE'S FAUST. 311 

the appearance of Rev. Charles T. Brooks' translation 
seemed to forestall him in his hope for a profitable sale 
of the book; and once when he saw with unusual 
clearness the great difficulty of obtaining words in the 
English language which should not only express the 
meaning, but do so in acceptable rhyme. 

But those discouraging facts were soon surmounted 
or forgotten in the great passion of his literary life 
and the study of the language, manners, and beliefs 
of the German people was not abandoned. 

He found in the first volume many references to the 
superstitions of the German people, and he set ubout 
learning the history of witches, fairies, sprites, and 
the Devil, as known to German literature. This, in 
itself, is no small task. He then encountered what he 
thought was, perhaps, a kind of burlesque on the 
government and its laws, and to feel sure that it was 
so or was not so, he studied the history of the German 
principalities, especially of Weimar, where Goethe 
resided. 

He found many illustrations from the landscapes 
of Italy, Switzerland, Greece and Germany, and it 
became necessary not only to visit those countries, but 
to look upon the landscapes mentioned in order to be 
sure of the exact meaning of the words of description 
as they were used by the great poet. Hence, in Spain, 
France, Italy, Egypt, Greece, and Germany, he 
sought the places mentioned by Goethe in his works, 
and noted the correctness or error of his reading. 



312 Ll^E O^ BAYARD TAYLOR. 

The mountain scenes, more especially of the Hartz 
Mountains, and " The Brocken," were peculiarly diffi- 
cult passages in view of the possibly double meaning 
of many words when found in any connection, and in 
view of the peculiai use which Goethe so independ- 
ently made of them. Hence, Mr. Taylor made 
frequent excursions in Europe during the last eighteen 
years, with the purpose in view of obtaining a more 
accurate knowledge of Goethe's thoughts. Frequent 
references are made to customs now obsolete, to theo- 
logical opinions now unknown, and words inserted 
long out of use or wholly made by the poet himself. 
All these re(][uired much study. 

To know the poet necessitated a thorough insight 
into the history of his time, a knowledge of his com- 
panions and the circumstances under which the poem 
was planned and written. This led to the study of 
Schiller's life, who was Goethe's bosom friend, and to 
trips to the localities where Goethe resided. Thus the 
work opened wider and wider at each stage in his 
acquirements, until at last the poem he had thought to 
be able to read understand! ngly in a year, was as yet 
untranslated after a score of years. 

He was probably assisted much by the previous 
translations, and had them to criticise and improve 
upon. But his work was higher than theirs, as he not 
only purposed to give the meaning and rhyme, but he 
intended, as far as possible, to retain the rythmical 
arranofement, and secure to the English all the 



HIS WORKS. 313 

charms of arrangement and sound of the German 
original. 

In this work he was often interrupted by the calls ol 
an editorial profession, and the cares of a correspond- 
ent. His greatest delays w^ere occasioned, however, 
by the production of poems on other themes. He is 
said to have had the "Deukalion" in mind for more than 
fifteen years, and upon that last work of a notable 
character which he has completed he bestowed much 
careful thought. It is a poem which, like those of 
Shakespeare and Goethe, grows valuable in proportion 
to the study bestowed upon it. 

He began this translation in 1850 in a vague, uncer- 
tain way, and has continued it through all those years 
and did not lost sight of it throughout all his various 
duties, cares, and diversions. Meantime, he had pub- 
lished the following works : " A Journey to Central 
Africa," "The Lands of the Saracen," and "Poems 
and Ballads," in 1855. "Visit to India, China, and 
Japan," "Poems of the Orient," and "Poems of Home 
and Travel," in 1855. "Cyclopediaof Modern Travel," 
edited in 1856. "Northern Travel — Sweden, Nor- 
way, Denmark, and Lapland," 1857. "Travels in 
Greece and Russia," "At Home and Abroad," first 
series, in 1859." "At Home and Abroad," second 
series, and "The Poet's Journal," in 1862. "Hannah 
Thurston," a novel, in 1863. "John Godfrey's For- 
tunes," a novel, in 1864. "The Story of Kennett," a 
novel, and " The Picture of Saint John," a poem, in 



314 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

18G6. *^ Colorado, a, Summer Trip," and edited a 
translation of the "Frithjof Saga," from the Swedish, 
in 1867. "The Byways of Europe," and the "Ballad 
of Abraham Lincoln," and an edited edition of Auer- 
bach's "Villa on the Rhine," in 1869. "Joseph and 
His Friends," a novel, in 1870. Then appeared 
"Goethe's Faust," in 1871, followed by "The Masque 
of the Gods" (1872), and a collected and carefully 
edited edition of the "Illustrated Library of Travel, 
Exploration and Adventure," and "Lars," a poem, in 
1873 ; — all of which w^ere in his mind, more or less 
distinctly, previous to the publication of "Faust." But 
" The History of Germany," " The Boys of other Coun- 
tries," ''EgyjDt and Iceland," a volume of travel, "The 
Prophet," and " Home Pastorals," poems, as well as 
the recent poem of "Deukalion," and "The Echo 
Club," were subsequently conceived and written. 

Thus, it will be seen, how full of interruptions the 
work of translation must have been when so many 
volumes, so many thousands miles of travel, so much 
editorial work, so many lectures, such need of money, 
nd so much attention given to the construction of a 
/ome, all intervened to distract and discourage. 

Yet, with a perseverance most laudable and remark- 
able, he kept ever before him Goethe and his works. 
Of the merits of his translation no final judgment can 
be given until the public have had more time to study 
the work, and until a greater number of scholars have 
compared it with the original. It has received great 



HIS GREAT WORK. 315 

commendation ; but such a work requires age, and 
much thought. Its beauties lie deep, and are hidden 
from superficial minds, and it was Mr. Taylor's plan to 
follow the translation with a companion edition of the 
lives of Goethe and Schiller, which would in a pleasant 
way serve to expound and make attractive that great 
poem. 

That his translation is regarded by the most distin- 
guished scholars as an excellent production and worthy 
of an exalted position in literature, is shown by the 
fact that he has been so often urged by them to go on 
with his purposed biography of that great poet. No 
sooner had Mr. Taylor allowed the fact to become 
known, that he was engaged on such a book, than he 
was the recipient of many letters from all parts of the 
world where English-speaking people live, expressing 
their satisfaction that he had undertaken it, and 
encouraging him in many ways. This fact, however, 
rather delayed than assisted the work, for the appear- 
ance of so many great writers awaiting with impatience 
the publication of the book, startled him and magni- 
fied the importance of his labors. He felt that the 
combined biography of Goethe and Schiller would be 
the crowning work of his life, and more than once 
expressed the thought that it might be his last. To 
supply the demand for present publications, perform 
the duties which devolved upon him in his high oflSce, 
and keep steadily advancing with the greater work, 
required more strength than one frame could supply. 



316 LIFE OF BAYAllD TAYLOR. 

He felt the strain, and sometimes thought it best to 
leave everything in the line of labor, and rest. The 
need of such a course did not, however, seem impera- 
tive until he was too near his end to ward off the blow. 
Death came to him in the midst of his work, and in 
the most sudden manner. One day he is seen at his 
work ; the next he is numbered among those that have 
lived — but are gone. His wife and daughter (Lil- 
lian), with most devoted nursing, had seen the invalid 
of the previous weeks reviving and gaining strength, 
until able again to attend to business, when, almost 
without warning, he sinks and dies within a few hours. 
The book for reference, the packages of manuscript, 
the letters from admirers of Goethe and Schiller, the 
notes and extracts, slips and pictures, lay where he 
placed them, accessible to his hand ; but the pen is 
unmoved, the author is dead, and the Lives of Goethe 
and Schiller are incomplete. 



GRIEF AT HIS DEATH. 317 



CHAPTER XXXn. 

Grief at bis Death. — Homage of the Great Meu of Germany. - 
Tribute from Auerbach. — Tributes from his Neighbors at Keu 
nett Square. — Extracts from Addresses. — The Great Memorial 
Gathering at Boston. — The Great Assembly. — Speeches and 
Letters. —Address of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. — Henry W. 
Longfellow's Poem. — Letters from John G. Whittier, George 
William Curtis, W. D. Howells, T. B. Aldrich, James T. Fields, 
Whitelaw Reid, E. P. Whipple. —Tributes from his Near 
Friends. — Closing Quotations from Mr. Taylor's Writings. 

The news of Bayard Taylor's death called forth 
universal expressions of regret. The press, secular 
and religious, mentioned his decease with extended 
editorial comment upon his useful and honorahle life. 
Public meetings were held to pay tribute to his mem- 
ory, and the Congress of the United States passed a 
bill making Mrs. Taylor a gift of seven thousand dol- 
lars, as a mark of the nation's appreciation of Mr. 
Taylor's services. 

In Germany, memorial services were held, at which 
the greatest literary men of that empire made ad- 
dresses, showing their appreciation of Mr. Taylor's 
friendship and scholarship. But one of the most 
touching tributes which Germany has given to the 



318 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

memory of the deceased poet, was uttered by the cele- 
brated Berthold Auerbach, whose books are uow found 
in the libraries of many different nations, and who waa 
for many years the intimate companion of Mr. Taylor. 
In his address made at Mr. Taylor's funeral in Berlin, 
where were gathered a large number of such men as 
Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, Prof. Lepsius, Paul Lin- 
dau, Julius Rodenberg, Prof. Gncist, Dr. Lowe, Count 
Lehndorflf, and numerous government officials, he thus 
addressed the mourning friends : — 

*' Here, under flowers which have grown on German soil, 
rests the perishable encasing wherein for fifty-three years 
was enshrined the richly-endowed spirit which bore the name 
of Bayard Taylor. Coming races will name thee who never 
looked into thy kindly countenance, never grasped thy hon- 
est hand, never heard a word from th}^ mouth. And yet no, 
the breath of the lips fadeth away, but thy words, thy 
words o^ song, will endure. In exhortation to thy surviv- 
ing dear ones, from the impulse of my heart as thine oldest 
friend in the Old World, as thou were wont to call me, and 
as representing German literature, I bid thee now a parting 
farewell. What thou hast become and art to remain in the 
empire of mind history will determine. To-day our hearts 
do quake with grief and sorrow, and 3'et they are exalted. 
Thou wert born in the fatherland of Benjamin Franklin, and 
like him, to thine honor, raised thyself from a state of 
manual labor to be an apostle of the spirit of purity and 
&eedomi and to be a representative of thy people among ao 



auerbach's address. 319 

alien nation. No, not in a land of strangers, for thou wert 
at home among us ; thou hast died in the land of Goethe, to 
whose high spirit thou didst always with devotion turn ; 
thou hast raised him up a monument before thine own peo- 
ple, and wouldst erect him yet another in presence of all 
men ; but that design has disappeared with thee. But thou 
thyself hast been, and art still, one of them whose coming 
he announced — a disciple of the univeral literature, in the 
free and boundless air of which the everlasting element in 
man, scorning the limits of nationality, mounts on bold, 
adventurous flights and ever on new poetic fancies sunwards 
soars. In thy very latest work thou didst show thou livedst 
in that religion which embraces in it all creeds, and in the 
name of no one separates one from another. Nature gifted 
thee with grace and strength, with a soul clear and full of 
chaste enjoyment, with melody and the tuneful voice to 
search and proclaim the workings of nature in the eternal 
and unexhausted region of being, as well as to sing the 
earthly and ever-new joj^s of married and filial love, of 
friendship, truth, and patriotism, and the ever higher ascend- 
ing revelations of the history of man. Born in the New 
World, travelled in the Old, and oh, so soon torn from the 
tree of life, thou hast taught thy country the history of the 
Gemian people, so that they know each other as brothers, 
and of this let us remain mindful. In tuneful words didst 
thou for thy people utter the jubilee acclaim of their anni- 
versary. When it returns, and the husks of our souls do lie 
like this one here, then will the lips of millions yet unborn 
pronounce the name of Bayard Taylor. May thy memory 
be blessecj." 



320 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

In one of his poems Mr. Taylor wrote, in 1862, — 

*' Fame won at home is of all fame the best," 

And how gratifying has it been to all of Mr. Taylor's 
friends to hear of the memorial gathering held in his 
native Kennett, where young and old vied with each 
other to do their townsman honor. With a modesty 
and sincerity characteristic of the quiet community, 
they assembled and talked of the virtues and achieve- 
ments of their deceased neighbor. 

One townsman (Edwin Brosius) referred to Mr. 
Taylor's life, and in his remarks spoke thus : — 

'* Locating in Kennett Square about the time he returned 
from his first visit to Europe, I remember him as a bright, 
blushing, diffident j^outh, just entering manhood ; and with 
him I always associate that gentle and beautiful girl, with 
matchless e3'es, who inspired many of his earl}' lyrics, and 
whose death ' filled the nest of love with snow.' He was 
the pride of the communit}^ then, and as 3'ears passed on 
his course was silentl}^ watched with a quiet J03', like that a 
parent feels for a child that seems to follow instinctively the 
true path. His appointment as Minister to Germany created 
a feeling that could be silent no longer, and here in this hall 
we gave him the first ovation. No one thought that when 
we said ' Kennett rejoices that the world acknowledges her 
son,' that it would so soon be meet to say that Kennett 
mourns that her son is dead. Yes, mourns with a grief like 
that which he felt when he wrote ' Moan, ye wild winds ! 
around the pane.' 



FRIENDS AT KENNETT. 321 

*' The weariness that oppressed him while being feted 
on every hand, which he thought was only temporary, 
proved to be the shadow of the coming change. A few 
more months and a few more warnings, and all was over. 

" The strings are silent : who shall dare to wake them ; 

Though later deeds demand their living powers ? 
Silent in other lands, what hand shall make them 
Leap as of old to shape the songs of ours ? '* 

'* Perhaps I have now said enough ; but permit me to 
speak briefly of one, still mentally bright under the weight 
of fourscore years, the mother of Bayard Taylor, to whom 
we must be indebted for much of the honor her son has 
given us. The latent genius of the mother was more fully 
developed in the son, and guarded, strengthened, and encour- 
aged by her watcbAjl mind, he became all that she could 
desire. When here at school, I remember how bright I 
thought she was, and my admiration was not lessened when 
she called me one of her boys. The voices of two of her 
sons are now silent in the tomb. One taken when full of 
hope, in the bloom of youth, while defending his country's 
flag. The other in the full fruitage of mature life, bearing 
many honors, and the pillar of the familj^ a loss to her 
which she cannot tell. We may speak or write our grief, 
but no human pen or tongue can express hers ; words can- 
not tell how nearly the light of hope goes out when such 
treasures are taken from a mother's sight and heart." 

Another friend (Wm. B. Preston) contributed a 
poem, in which two stanzas read as follows : — 



322 lilFE OF UA.YAKD TAYLOB. 

" Though to the learued thy lofty works 
Like mighty hosts appear ; 
The tale of her own neighborhood 
Bids Kennett hold the dear. 

And Cedarcroft ! thy name will shine 

Through ages long to come, 
With Stratford and with Abbotsford, 

The monarch minstrel's home." 

Another neighbor (William W. Polk) gave au 
extended sketch of Mr. Taylor's career, and another 
neighbor (Edward Swayne) contributed the second 
poem, opening with, — 

** On the margin of the Spre* 
Rests his body, is it heT 
Is it all ? or only part t 
Questions still my doubting heft/ 1. 
Traveller ! i© what realm, elate, 
Dost thou read the book of fate 1 
Poet ! in what finer mood 
Singest thou infijiitude f 
Dost thou know the path we tend ! 
The beginning and the end ? 
Backward through the twilight past 
What evolved us from the vast t 
Forward, to what things afar, 
We shall moiint from star to star f 
Canst thou see beyond the brink 
What we faintly dare to think ? 
Though our thoughts are wrung with paia 
Yet we question but in vain. 
Still no sound the silence breaks, 
Not to us the dead awakes." 



FRIENDS IN BOSTON. 323 

Numerous friends addressed the gathering ; there were 
hymns, quotations, and letters from others, and the 
whole people exhibited an interest in honoring his 
memory. 

At Boston, Mass., there was held, shortly after Mr. 
Taylor's death, one of the most notable gatherings ever 
seen in America, so spontaneous and universal was 
the desire to do honor to their deceased countryman. 
The gathering was in Tremont Temple, and was under 
the auspices of a literary association known as " The 
Boston Young Men's Congress." The young men 
studiously avoided any arrangement or announcement 
which would give the gathering any appearance of 
display or ceremony, and the friends of Mr. Taylor in 
that city came together in such numbers, that long 
before the hour appointed for the opening of the meet- 
ing, that great hall was crowded in every part, while 
immense crowds so choked the entrances that the 
police were obliged to close the gates and shut out the 
throng. The great majority of the audience consisted 
of literary persons and of officials of the State and 
nation. Russell H. Con well presided, and opened the 
exercises by giving a brief sketch of Mr. Taylor's 
early life, after which there followed other informal 
addresses by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes ; Richard 
Frothingham, the historian ; A. B. Alcott, the author ; 
J. Boyle O'Reilly, the poet; Hon. J. B. D. Cogs- 



324 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

well, the president of the Massachusetts Senate; 
Curtis Guild, the author ; Dr. William M. Cornell, and 
others. Letters were read from James T. Fields, 
George William Curtis, W. D. Howells, E. P. Whip- 
ple, John G. Whittier, T. B. Aldrich, and regrets 
for their inability to be present expressed by President 
Rutherford B. Hayes, Hon. Charles Devens, ex-Gov- 
ernor Henry Howard, of Rhode Island, General B. F. 
Butler, Richard H. Dana, Sr., W. A. Simmons, W. 
F. Warren, D. D., Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, 
Governor Thomas Talbot, of Massachusetts, and many 
other distinguished men. 

The crowning feature of the evening's exercises con- 
sisted in the reading of Longfellow's poem, "Bayard 
Taylor," by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. The audi- 
ence, hushed into almost breathless silence, hung upon 
Dr. Holmes's introductory remarks, with a fascination 
seldom seen, and when that sweet poem was reached, 
and its reading began, tears were seen in many eyes, 
BO pathetic and solemn was the impression. 

The grand chorus of the Boston Mendelssohn Choral 
Union, under the direction of Prof. Stephen A. Emery, 
of the New England Conservatory of Music, sang in 
a most artistic and inapressive manner some of those 
charming old German chorals which Mr. Taylor loved 
so much, and pleased the audience much with its ren- 
dition of '*0h, for the wings of a Dove," with Mr. 
Wilkie and Miss Fisher as soloists. 



DR. HOLMES*S ADDRESS. 325 

Nothing can show the regard in which Mr. Taylor 
was held, better than the contributions to that informal 
gathering, and we cannot do less than preserve some 
of them for the benefit of posterity, especially as it 
was that gathering which suggested this book. 

Dr. Holmes's address was nearly as follows : — 

** I can hardly ask your attention to the lines which Mr. 
Longfellow has written, and done me the honor of asking 
me to read, without a few words of introduction. The poem 
should have flowed from his own lips in those winning 
accents too rarely heard in any assembly, and never forgot- 
ten by those who have listened to him. But its tenderness 
and sweetness are such that no imperfection of utterance 
can quite spoil its harmonies. There are tones in the con- 
tralto of our beloved poet's melodious song that were born 
with it, and must die with it when its music is silenced. 

' ' A tribute from such a singer would honor the obsequies 
of the proudest sovereign, would add freshness to the laurels 
of the mightiest conqueror. But he who this evening has 
this tribute laid upon his hearse, wore no crown save that 
which the sisterhood of the Muses wove for him. His vic- 
tories were all peaceful ones, and there has been no heart- 
ache after any of them. His life was a journey through 
many lands of men, through many realms of knowledge. 
He left his humble door in boyhood, poor, untrained, 
unknown, unheralded, unattended. He found himself, once 
at least, as I well remember his telling me, hungry and well- 
nigh pennUess in the streets of an European city, feasting 



326 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

his eyti at a baker's window and tiglitening his girdle in 
place of a lopast. Once more he left his native land, now 
in the strength of manhood, known and honored throughout 
the world of letters, the sovereignty of the nation investing 
him with its mantle of dignity, the laws of civilization sur- 
rounding him with the halo of their inviolable sanctity, — 
che boy who went forth to view the world afoot, now on 
equal footing with the potentates and princes who, by right 
of birth or by the might of intellect, swayed the destinies 
of great empires. 

•' He returns to us no more as we remember him, but his 
career, his example, the truly American story of a grand, 
cheerful, active, self-developing, self-sustaining life, remains 
as an enduring inheritance for all coming generations." 

Mr. Longfellow's poem, as read by Dr. Holmes, 

was as fdlovrs : — 

"Bayard Taylor. 

" Dead he lay among his books I 
The peace of God was in his looks. 

As the statues* in the gloom, 
Watch o'er Maximilian's tomb, 

So those volumes from their shelves 
Watched him, silent as themselves. 

Ah ! his hand will never more 
Turn their storied pages o'er ; 

Never more his lips repeat 
Songs of theirs, however sweet. 

* In the Hof kirche, at Innsbrack. 



Longfellow's poem. 327 

Let the lifeless body rest I 
He is gone who was its guest. 

Gone as travellers haste to leave 
An inn, nor tarry until eve. 

Traveller I in what realms afar, 
In what planet, in what star, 

In what vast aerial space. 
Shines the light upon thy face f 

In what gardens of delight 
Rest thy weary feet to-night ? 

Poet 1 thou whose latest verse 
Was a garland on thy hearse, 

Thou hnst sung with organ tone 
In Deukalion's life thine own. 

On the ruins of the Past 
Blooms the perfect flower, at last. 

Friend 1 but yesterday the bells 
Rang for thee their loud farewells ; 

And to-day they toll for thee, 
* Lying dead beyond the sea ; 

Lying dead among thy books ; 
The peace of God in all thy looks." 

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

We also insert a part of Dr. Wm. M. Corneira 
address : — 



328 LIFE OF BAYARD TArLOR. 

' Mr. President : — As 3'ou have introduced me as ' The 
Historian of Penns3'lvania/ or, ' Penn's Woods,* as j'ou 
know the term means, you will allow me to say something 
of that good old noble Commonwealth which gave birth to 
Bayard Ta3'lor, whose recent and sudden demise has called 
us together. As he was a worthy son of that Quaker land, 
something about it may be expected of their historian. I 
know the Quakers have never had much love for Boston, 
and I do not think they are to blame for it either; foi 
if you had treated me as they were treated in this vicin- 
ity, with all the grace given me I don't think my love for 
you would superabound. But we will not revive, on this 
solemn occasion, the bigotry and illiberality of the past, 
especially as this vast audience, assembled in this old Pil- 
grim city to honor the memory of a gifted son of Quaker- 
dom, looks very much like ' bringing forth fruits meet for 
repentance ' of those deeds of yore. 

*' Grand old Penns3ivania ! the ke3'^stone of the nation; 
for 3'ou all know the old proverb, ' As goes Pennsylvania, 
so goes the Union, — I honor thy name ! Thy sons are 
patriots ! The Indian sachem said to the first ' pale faces ' 
who came here (understand, I speak as a Penns3^1vanian, in 
accordance with my introduction), 'This is our ground. 
We came up right out of this ground, and it is our ground. 
You came up out of ground away beyond the big waters, 
and that's 3'our ground.' 

"Ba3'ard Taylor, the poet, the traveller, the biographer, 
the botanist, the patriot, the plenipotentiary, whom we so 
justly mourn, came up out of this land. He was a true son 



LETTERS. 329 

of our soil, which has always produced patriots. Think you 
President Hayes did not know this when he appointed him 
Minister to that grand old nation, Germany, — the land of 
Emperor William, and Minister Bismarck, — the most learned 
in the world ? The President did honor to himself by this 
appointment, and Baj-ard Taylor did honor to our nation, 
and is mourned by the whole world." 

Omitting the address of the letters for sake of 
brevity, we insert several : — 

** Dear Sir : — Will 3'ou have the kindness to express to 
the committee of arrangements my deep regret at not being 
able to attend the meeting at Tremont Temple in honor of 
Bayard Taylor's memory. I sail from New York for 
Europe on the 8th instant. I also regret that the pressure 
of private matters will not allow me to prepare a tribute to 
my old friend. You will understand how nearly his death 
touches me, when I say that it breaks an unclouded inti- 
macy of twentj^-four years. If it should be in order, perhaps 
some one will read the poem which I prirvted in the New 
York ' Tribune ' on Christmas morning. I orclose a copy. 
''Yours, very respectfully, 

''Thomas Bailey ALi?Ririr 

To which was attached the following poem " 

" In other years — lost youth's enchanted yeats 
Seen now and evermore, through blinding tears 
And empty longing for what may not be — 



330 LII'E OI^ BAYARD TATLOR. 

The Desert gave him back to us ; the Sea 

Yielded him up ; the icy Northland strand 

Lured him not long, nor that soft German air 

He loved could keep him. Ever his own land 

Fettered his heart and brought him back again. 

What sounds are those of farewell and despair 

Blown by the winds across the wintry main ? 

What unknown way is this that he has gone, 

Our Bayard, in such silence, and alone ? 

What new, strange guest has tempted him once more 

To leave us ? Vainly standing by the shore 

We strain our eyes. But patience . . . when the soft 

Spring gales are blowing over Cedarcroft, 

Whitening the hawthorn ; when violets bloom 

Among the Brandywine, and overhead 

The sky is blue as Italy's — he will come ; 

Ay, he will come. I cannot make him dead." 

*' Dear Friend : — I am not able to attend the memorial 
meeting in Tremont Temple on the 10th instant, but my 
heart responds to any testimonial appreciative of the intel- 
lectual achievements and the noble and manty life of Bayard 
Taylor. More than thirty years have intervened between 
my first meeting him in the fresh bloom of his youth and 
hope and honorable ambition, and my last parting with him 
under the elms of Boston Common after our visit to Richard 
H. Dana, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of that 
honored father of American poetry, still living to lament the 
death of his younger disciple and friend. How much he has 
accomplished in these years ! The most industrious of men, 
slowly, patiently, under many disadvantages, he built up his 
splendid reputation. Traveller, editor, novelist, translator, 



LETTERS. 331 

diplonmtist, and throiigh all and above all poet, what he was 
he owed wholly to himself. His native honesty was satisfied 
with no half tasks. He finished as he went, and always said 
and did his best. 

'' It is perhaps too early to assign him his place in Ameri- 
can literature. His picturesque books of travel, his Oriental 
l^-rlcs, his Pennsylvanian idyls, his Centennial ode, the 
pastoral beauty and Christian sweetness of ' Lars,' and the 
high arguments and rythmic marvel of ' Deukalion,* are 
sureties of the permanence of his reputation. But at this 
moment my thoughts dwell rather upon the man than author. 
The calamity of his death, felt in both hemispheres, is to me 
and to all who intimately knew and loved him, a heavy per- 
sonal loss. Under the shadow of this bereavement, in the 
inner circle of mourning, we sorrow most of all that we shall 
see his face no more, and long for ' the touch of a vanished 
hand and the sound of a voice that is still.* 

*' Thy friend, 

"John G. Whittier." 

"Dear Sir: — I very much regret that I shall not be 
able to accept the invitation of the Young Men's Congress 
for Friday evening of next week. At the same time I wish 
in heartiest sympathy to unite with them in honor ng the 
memory of Bayard Taylor, whom I not only valued as a man 
of the highest intellectual quaUties, but in whose loss I have 
to lament a dear friend. I beg you to convey to the com 
mittee of arrangements my deep sense of honor done me. 
"Very truly yours, 

"W. D. HOWELLS." 



332 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

"My Dear Sir: — An illness which confines me to the 
house will prevent m}^ being present at the meeting of the 
19th instant. I regret the circumstance very deeply, as it 
pains me to be absent on an}^ occasion in which the memory 
of Bayard Taylor is to be honored. 

" Very sincerely yours, 

*'E. P. Whipple." 

"Gentlemen of the Committee of the Taylor Memo- 
rial : — An imperative duty calls me to a distant county of 
the State on the evening set apart for the meeting at Tremont 
Temple. But even if I were not obliged to be absent from 
our city on that night, I doubt if I should have the courage 
to be present and trust my voice with any words fitting to 
such an occasion. The departure of my dear Bayard Taylor 
is so recent, his loss so unexpected, that my lips could only 
falter out a few broken expressions of individual sorrow, 
and I should be wholly incapable of an}' adequate public 
tribute to his memory. So many years of exceptional and 
near relationship with him — a brotherly intercourse, un- 
clouded from early manhood onward through his life — would 
incapacitate me from taking part before an audience as- 
sembled to honor his genius and his virtues, and I should 
probabl}^ be able only to stammer through tears an apology 
for my inability to speak his praises. These tender words 
by Halleck better convey my meaning : — 

' While memory bids me weep thee, 
Nor thoughts nor words are free, 
The grief is fixed too deeply 
That mourns a man like thee.' 

" James T. Fields." 



LETTERS. 333 

"Dear Sir: — I am very sorry that my engagements 
compel me to decline your invitation to attend the meeting 
in memory of Bayard Taylor. But no one will say any word 
of praise of his manly and generous character, or of grati- 
tude for his noble example of faithful industry, to which my 
lieart will not respond. I knew him well for nearly thirty 
years, and when I said good-by to him last May, as he de- 
parted, amid universal applause and satisfaction, upon a 
mission to Germany, he was as frank and simple and earnest 
as the youth whom I remember long ago. He died in the 
fulness of his activity and hope ; but the death of a man so 
true and upright leaves us a sorrow wholly unmixed with the 
wish that his life might have been different, or with regret 
that it was only a promise. Like the knight-at-arms, whose 
name he bore, he was a gentle knight of letters, without fear 
and without reproach, and by those of us who personally 
knew him well he will be long and tenderly remembered. 
"' Truly yours, 

*' George William Curtis." 

*'Dear Sir: — Nothing but an imperative engagement 
elsewhere could keep me from uniting with those friends of 
my friend — Bayard Taylor — who propose next Friday, in 
Boston, to commemorate his life and virtues. From our 
professional association, I could not but know him in- 
timately, and he was one of the few men of distinction with 
whom every added year of intimacy continued to brighten, 
not merely j'our affection, but also your respect. The 
essential characteristic alike of his life, and his work, was 
Its inherent honesty. He described what he saw ; he wrote 
what he thought; he meant friendship if he gave you hia 



334 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

hand. I never knew him to shrink from expressing an 
opinion, merel}^ because it was unpopular ; and, I am sure, 
he never sought a man merely because the man was power- 
ful. He had an honest pride in what he had done, — a pride 
that made him eager to share his good fame and fortune 
with his earliest and humblest friends. He had the genius 
of hard work. He did many things ; he came to do most 
of them extremely well, and not a few of them easily ; but 
he never undertook any task, however familiar, or however 
humble, without doing his best. Those who did not know 
him, have sometimes described him as more German than 
American ; but if these be German qualities, we may well 
be eager to see them naturalized. 

*' Quick to the praise of his old Quaker friends, nothing 
touched him more than the praise of Boston ; and to those 
that prize his memory, nothing now can be more grateful 
than the sympathetic appreciation of your meeting. 
" I am, very respectfully, 

'' WniTELAW Reid.** 

''My Dear Conwell:— I acknowledge the courtesy 
of your invitation to do myself the honor to take part in 
honoring my deceased friend, — the late Minister at Ber- 
lin. 

" I am gi-ieved be3^ond expression that the necessities of 
public duty require my leaving so early for Washington, 
that, in making my arrangements, it is impossible for me to 
be in town overnight. 

" Independent of the public relations of duty, it is well to 
pause to do honor to one who has so faithfully and well 
served his countiy, and his kind. I have the deepest sensi- 



LETTERS. 335 

bilities of remembrance of Bayard Taylor's personal kind- 
ness to me on many occasions, and especially as his guest, 
to incite me to be present. 

*' I am glad that Massachusetts, in the meeting you assem- 
ble, will show her appreciation of his character and services, 
and regret, with more than ordinary emotion, that I rds 
prevented from taking part in it. 

' ' Please represent me as wishing to say and do all that I 
might in that behalf, and believe me, 

'* Yours truly, 

*'Benj. F. Butler." 

Mr. Taylor had been a great favorite at the Century 
Club, in New York, and a frequent visitor at the Lotus 
Club of the same city. He was usually accompanied 
by some one or two of his intimate friends, and at the 
time Mr. Taylor's death was announced, several oi 
them who had been known to be his close companions 
were requested to give to the " Tribune " letters of 
" reminiscences " for publication. Among these thus 
hastily collected tributes were several of those which 
follow. Mr. Eichard H. Stoddard said : — 

'' I have known Mr. Bayard Taylor so long that I hardly 
know when our acquaintance began. It was at least thirty 
years ago, during his fii!st year's residence in New York, after 
his tour in Europe and the publication of his ' Views Afoot.' 
The occasion of our acquaintance was a magazine which had 



336 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

lately been started here, and which was edited by Mrs. 
Caroline M. Kirkland, one of my earliest and best literary 
friends. I had contributed to this periodical, which was 
entitled ' The Union Magazine,' and on her departure 
for Europe she recommended me to call upon her young 
friend, Mr. Taylor, who was to take care of it for her dur- 
ing her absence. She was sure I would like him, for we 
were Arcades ambo. I called upon him, and liked him, as 
she had foreseen I would. I found him in the editorial 
room of the ' Tribune,' a dingy, dusty, comfortless den on 
the same floor with the composing-room, if I remember 
rightly. He was seated on the hither side of an old ink- 
stained desk, which was surrounded by a railing, over which 
newspapers were flung, and was writing rapidly. He looked 
up when I addressed him and stated my errand — a bright, 
joyous, handsome man of twenty-five, with a world of 
animation in his sparkling dark ej^es. I have no recollec- 
tion of what passed between us, except that the poem which 
was in his hands was accepted, and that we had taken a 
fancy to each other. I went away feeling happy, for I felt 
that I had made a friend, and one who could sjTnpathize 
with me. There were two bonds between us — love of verse, 
and equality of years. He was the first man of letters who 
had treated me like one of the craft, and I was grateful to 
him, as I should have been, for I was weary of the intel- 
lectual snobbery I had undergone from others. 

*' It was not long before we were what Bums calls * bosom 
cronies.' We used, I remember, to spend our Saturday 
evenings together, generally at his rooms, which were within 



OTHER TRIBUTES. 337 

a stone's throw of the ' Tribune ' office, at a boarding- 
house in Warren Street, not far from Broadwa3\ He lived 
in a sky parlor, which is present before me now, as if I had 
seen it but an hour ago. I remember just where his table 
stood, and the little desk upon which he afterward wrote 
so many books, and upon which he was then writing so 
many charming poems. I took up the collected edition of 
his poetical works this afternoon in my library, and turning 
over the leaves sorrowfull}', felt the weight of thirty years 
roll from me — not lightl}', as it would have done a few 
weeks ago, but with a pahi for which I have no words. 
They were all there, the poems which I remembered so well 
— ' Ariel in the Cloven Pine ' (which I read in MS. before 
it saw the light of print) , ' The Metempsj^chosis of the 
Pine,' ' Mon-da-min ' (which was written years before the 
' Song of Hiawatha'), ' Kubleh,' and, saddest of all, the 
solemn dirge beginning ' Moan, ye wild winds ! around the 
pane." As I read, I saw the eager face, the glowing eyes, 
the kindly smile of the enthusiastic 3'oung poet, whom the 
world preferred to consider as a traveller merely, and who 
knew so many things of which I was profoundly ignorant. 
My nature is not a reverent one, I fear, but I looked up to 
Bayard Taylor, and admired his beautiful genius. We read 
and criticised each other's verse a good deal too lightly and 
generously, I have since thought, and talked of the poets 
whom we were studjing. It was his fancy that there was 
something in his genius which was allied to that of Shellc}', 
and 1 hoped that I might claim some relationship with Keats, 
enough at least to make me a ' poor relation.' We talked 



338 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

long and late ; we smoked mild cigars ; and, once in a while 
when our exchequers were replenished, we indulged in the 
sweet luxmy of stewed 03'sters, over which we had more 
talk, of present plans and future renown. I was, I believe, 
Baj^ard Taylor's most intimate friend at this time, and the 
one with whom he most consorted, though he had, of course, 
a large literary acquaintance among the young writers of 
the period, whose name was Legion, and whose works are 
now forgotten. I have spent many happy nights with my 
dead friend, but none which were so happy as those. I 
looked forward to them as young men look forward to holi- 
days which they have planned. I look back upon them as 
old men look back to their past delights, with pity and 
regret. 

" The world, as I have said, considered Bayard Taylor as 
a traveller, and it was his pleasure, as well as his profit, 
during the first years of our friendship, to travel largely in 
California, in Egj^pt, in Japan, and elsewhere in the Old 
World. I read his letters of travel as they appeared in the 
' Tribune,' and I read these letters again which he collected 
thus in books after his retm'n. I saw that they were good 
of their kind ; I felt that his prose was admirable for its 
simplicity and correctness ; but, with a waj^wardness which 
I could not help, I slighted them for his poetr}^ I thought 
then, and think still, that his ' California Ballads ' and 
* Poems of Travel ' are masterly examples of spirited, pic- 
turesque writing, and I am sure that his ' Poems of the 
Orient' are superior to anything of the kind in the English 
language. They have a local color which is absent from 



OTHER TRIBUTES. 339 

' Lalla Rookh.' The ' Bedouia Song/ for instance, ig 
instinct with the fiery, passionate life of the East, and is a 
worth}^ companion-piece to Shelley's ' Lines to an Indian 
Air.' The ' Poems of the Orient ' were dedicated to me, 1 
shall always be happy to remember, in a poetical ' Epistle 
from Tmolus.' 

" Bayard Taylor had a sunny nature, which delighted in 
simple pleasures, and he had the happy art of putting 
trouble away from him. One trouble, however, he could 
not put away, as those who are familiar with his life and 
poems are aware. I have spoken of one of his early poems 
(' Moan, ye wild winds ! around the pane ') , which embodied 
the first great sorrow of his 3'oung manhood. It was writ- 
ten after the death of his first wife, whose memory it em- 
balms, and whose tender presence haunted him later in 
' The Mystery ' and ' The Phantom.' Among the literary 
acquaintances of Bayard Taylor and myself, I must not for- 
get to mention the late Fitz James O'Brien, whose promise 
was greater than his performance, and who, clever as he 
was in prose, was at his best a graceful poet. Taylor and 
O'Brien were in the habit of meeting in my rooms at night, 
about twenty-five 3'ears ago, and of fighting triangular 
poetical duels. We used to sit at the same table, with the 
names of poetical subjects on slips of paper, and drawing 
out one at random, see which of us would soonest write a 
poem upon it. This practice of ours, which is well enough 
as practice merelj', was the origin of Bayard Taylor's ' Echo 
Club.' 

" Always a charming companion, Bayard Taylor was 



340 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

delightful in his own home at Cedarcroft. I remember visit- 
ing him there when he gave his ' house- wanning,' and the 
merriment we had over a play which we wrote together, 
speech by speech, and scene by scene, and which we per- 
formed to the great delectation of his friends and neighbors. 
Many of the latter had never seen a theatrical performance 
before, and, I dare say, have never seen one since. Our 
play was a great success, and ought to have been, for there 
was not a word in it which had not done duty a thousand 
times before ! We called it ' Love in a Hotel.' * Miller 
Redivivus ' would have answered just as well, if not better. 

' ' The recollections of thirty years cannot be recalled at 
will, and seldom while those who shared them with us are 
overshadowed by death. I remember merry days and nights 
without number, and I remember sorrows which are bettor 
forgotten. One of my sorrows was deeply felt by Ba3"ard 
Taj'lor, who, fresh from the reading of the second part of 
* Faust,* saw in my loss a vision of Goethe's ' Euphorion.' 

*'The last time, but one, when I saw my friend alone 
was three or four nights before his departure for Berlin. It 
was one night at my own house, at a httle gathering to 
which I had invited our common friends, comrades of ten 
and twenty years' standing, poets, artists, and good fellows 
of both sexes. It was notable on one account, for our 
great poet Bryant came thither to do honor to his younger 
brother, Bayard Taylor. I cannot say that it was a happy 
night, for it was to be followed by an absence which was 
close at hand, — an absence which was to endure forev^er. 
Before two months had passed, the Nestor of our poets was 



OTHER TRIBUTES. 341 

gathered to his fathers in the fullness of his renown. His 
sons bewailed their father ; my good friend Stedman, in a 
noble poem in the ' Atlantic Monthl}^' and Bayard Taylor in 
a solemn ' Epicedium ' in ' Scribner's Monthly.' And now 
Bayard Taylor is gone ! 

"* Insatiate archer, could not one suffice?' The world 
of American letters has lost a poet in Bayard Taylor ; but 
we who knew and loved him — have lost a friend. 

'' R. H. Stoddard." 

" New York, Dec 19, 1878." 

Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, the poet, who enjoyed 
a very close intimacy with Mr. Taylor, spoke of him 
to the editor as follows : — 

" The causes which led to his death at this time, date back 
several years. When he returned from Europe then, he 
found his real estate and personal property largely depreciated 
and encumbered, and though near the age of fifty, he again 
found himself forced to tolerable hard work to support his 
family and position. It was this hard work, coupled with 
his resolute purpose, however other work might engross him, 
to keep up his more serious contributions to permanent 
Uterature, that ultimately led to his death. He took great 
pride in his home and broad acres, at Kennett Square, Penn. , 
his native place. He designed his own house, ' Cedar- 
croft,' and spent a great deal of money in its erection, and 
that, with the two hundred acres of land, which he owned 
and had greatly improved, was a source of expense rather 
than income to him. He had a handsome competence when 



342 LITE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

he went abroad, all of which he earned as a journalist, 
author, and lecturer, never having earned any money except 
by his pen. He decided to maintain his property in Ken- 
nett Square , and he set to work immediately to paj^ off the 
debt. Durii g the last four years, he has accomplished this, his 
income am( unting to from $12,000 to $18,000 a year; but 
he obtained it by very hard work. In fact, he had worked 
harder and accomplished more in that time than perhaps any 
other hving iterary man. He lectured each winter, in all sorts 
of weather, and in different parts of the country. He con- 
tributed largely to magazines and reviews, and never more 
brilliantly, besides doing a great amount of regular work 
for the ' Tr ibune.* He came from a long-lived famil}^, and 
his strengtl was very great, but he undertook too much. He 
did the wo k of two able-bodied men every day, and his 
health gavt way under the great strain on one or two 
occasions. He was compelled to go to the White Sulphur 
Springs, and other places for recuperation ; but he forced 
himself to work again before he had fully recovered. Dur- 
ing this time he wrote his last and most important poeni, 
* Prince Deukalion.' It was a source of great trial to him- 
self, and of regret to his friends, that he was unable to go 
on with his ' Life of Goethe,' for which he had secured ma- 
terial during his last sojourn in German3^ The great trouble 
with him was his inabilit}^, owing to his excessive labors, to 
take sufficient social recreation. His enemies, ver}^ few in 
number, have falsel}^ attempted to make a point against him 
on this account, charging him with excessive beer-drinking. 
It was his want of recreation and rest that killed him. He 
was forced to take some stimulus to support himself under 
wjthausting labor ; but he was not an excessive beer-drinker 



OTHER TRIBUTES. 343 

as he has been charged, though what he did take maj have 
helped to develop his disease. 

" No man in the country could do so much journalistic 
work, and do it so well in a given time, as could Mr. Tay- 
lor. He was remarkable in brilliant off-hand feats of liter- 
ary criticism. As an illustration, I might mention that 
about a year ago two large octavo volumes, containing 
poems by Victor Hugo, in the French, arrived by steamer, and 
were placed in Mr. Taylor's hands on Thursday evening. For 
some reason it was desirable that the criticism should appear 
in the ' Tribune ' of the following Saturday, and, of course, 
the copy had to be in the printers' hands early on Friday 
night. Mr. Taylor's health was bad at the time, and he 
also had in the meantime to deliver a lecture in Brooklyn, 
and another in New York. He finished his review in time 
on Friday night, and it appeared in the ' Tribune ' the fol- 
lowing morning, covering more than two-thirds of a page. 
It was equal to any of his literary criticisms, and surpassed 
any analysis of Hugo's genius that I have ever seen. One 
remarkable feature of the review was over a column of 
translation into English poetry from the original, including 
several lyrics and idyls so beautifully done that they seemed 
like original poems in the English. 

" Mr. Taylor was a man of wide and thorough learning, 
and was a much more exact scholar than would be sup- 
posed, considering that he was never at college, and spent 
a great deal of time in travel and observation. He had a 
smattering of all languages. He was familiar with Latin 
and Greek, spoke French well, and C-erman like a native ; 
he also conversed in Russian, Norse, Arabic, Italian, and 
knew something of modern Greek. His knowledge of 



344 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Greek was increased by his classical feeling, which, as with 
Keats, amounted almost to a passion. He was a good 
botanist, and somewhat of a geologist, and was an estab- 
lished authoritj' on geographical questions. He was greatly 
interested in all scientific studies. 

" As a man he was a peer among his fellows. He was 
the most simple, generous-hearted man of letters I ever 
knew. He was the first literar}- man T met in New York, 
my acquaintance dating from the time he came and took me 
by the hand in 1860, after the publication of one of my 
articles. He was never so happy as when surrounded by 
his friends in his own house. He had unbounded hospitalit}', 
and made his house the centre of literary Ufe in the city. 
New York will greatly miss him, and just such a leader was 
needed to give encouragement to our literary life. He was 
accused sometimes of egotism ; but he was not egotistical 
in the proper sense of the term. He was frank and out- 
spoken, and showed his feelings plainly, which gave rise to 
that charge. He always denounced shams and humbugs ; 
but I do not believe he ever did a mean act, and he never 
grew angry except on account of the meanness of others. 

" His private letters, of which I had a great number, were 
far more delightful than his published ones. He was very 
careful in his published letters not to say anything that 
might wound the feelings of distinguished persons from 
whom he received hospitality abroad. His private letters 
are full of the most interesting anecdotes and conversations 
with leading authors and magnates of other lands, and are 
charming in their clearness and esprit. His faults, and we 
all have them, were rather of a lovable nature. He cared 
most for his reputation as a poet, and his books on travel 
and novels were a secondary matter with him. 



OTHER TRIBUTES. 345 

*' Mr. Taylor did not seek the appointment as Minister to 
GeiTnany, but other positions were tendered him which he 
declined, and this was offered rather in obedience to popular 
demand. Mr. Taylor, Mr. Boker, and Mr. Stoddard 
started together in literary life thirty years ago, and they 
have always worked together, and have been firm friends. 
It was a rather curious coincidence that Mr. Boker should 
follow as Minister Mr. Taylor as Charge d' Affairs in Russia, 
and that just as Boker returned from Russia, Mr. Taylor 
should be sent as IVIinister to Germany." 

Mr. Samuel Coleman, the artist, said of him : — 

" I first knew Mr. Taylor nearly twenty years ago, and 
my acquaintance with him has always been of the pleasantest 
kind. I shall never forget a visit that I made to his home 
at Kennett Square, in 1861, in company with a brother 
artist. Much of our conversation was on art subjects, and 
in the evening Mr. Ta3^1or read to me with great gusto some 
poems written by an extravagant Southern writer. He read 
the poems in a manner that showed his keen appreciation of 
the comic element, and kept us laughing at the passages 
which the author had intended to be most dramatic. Mr. 
Taylor was a most genial host, and knew how to keep a 
room full of persons in the happiest mood. His speeches 
and his manner at such times cannot be described. 

" In art matters Mr. Taylor was thoroughly at home. 
He could not only write a good criticism of a painting, but 
he was also proficient in the use of brush and pencil. He 
began sketching when he was a boy, and he executed m>ny 



346 LIFE OP BAYARD TAYLOTl. 

paintings in water-colors. He was made one of the mem- 
bers of the "Water-Color Society soon after the society was 
started. Several of his works were shown at the annual 
exhibitions of the society, and were much admired. I met 
Mr. Taylor by appointment at Florence, Italy, in the spring 
of 1873, and visited with him for a short time in that city. 
We had talked of making a journey to Egypt together. I 
was to do some sketching there, while he was to glean 
materials for a book. Ill-health prevented me from making 
the proposed journey at that time, and I left him in 
Florence. He there occupied the rooms where Mrs 
Browning had lived. 

" In later years I had not seen so much of Mr. Taylor as 
I had wished. I remember the brilliant part he played in 
the Twelfth Night entertainment of the Century Club last 
winter, when he put on a high conical cap and marched 
about the room beating a large drum. As on many other 
occasions, his wit was displayed in comical speeches and 
retorts that kept his listeners laughing by the hour. I saw 
him for the last time at the house of a friend, when he 
spoke earnestly of the many happy associations he was 
about to leave. His heart was in this country, however 
much his interests might lie abroad." 



Mr. Charles T. Congdon, an associate on the 
Tribune," wrote : — 



" Everybody in the office knew how high Mr. Taylor 
Btood in the estimation of Mr. Greeley. A man who had 



OTHER TRIBUTES. 347 

worked his way up ; who, beginning as a printer, had come 
to be an admired writer, who was ambitious of excellence, 
and not afraid of toil to attain it, Mr. Greeley was naturally 
fond of. So, when the monument of tlie great journalist 
was to be dedicated, Mr. Taylor was properly selected to 
make one of the principal addresses on the occasion. How 
good that address waSj haw well conceived and arranged 
and delivered, need not be said to those who had the satis- 
faction of hearing it. It was indeed an impressive occasion 
when, standing above the tomb of his old master, surrounded 
by those to whom that noble man was dear, with the liberal 
sky stretched over the earnest speaker, and the great, busy 
city in the distance, Mr. Taylor, in manly words and 
sonorous voice, paid those glowing tributes to which aU our 
hearts responded. Somebody now must speak for him ; but 
his memory will lack no eulogist. There is enough to say 
of such a vigorous and wise career : something, too, there 
is, alas ! which must be left unsaid. Of any of us who 
remain, had our fate been his, he would have spoken kind 
and generous words ; nor should he go to his grave ' without 
the meed of one melodious tear.' 

''After many years had gone by, Mr. Taylor came back 
to do regular daily work in the ' Tribune ' office, and this he 
continued until his departure for Gennany. I was near 
him, and, if there were any need of it, I could speak again of 
his unflagging industry, and of his excellent quaUties as a 
journalist. He had the faculty which every newspaper 
writer should possess, of writing fairly weU upon any topic 
confided to him. Of course his special skill was displayed 



348 LIFE OF BAYARD TArLOK. 

in literary labor ; but when he saw fit to write upon what 
may be called secular themes, he did so in an able and 
judicious way. He was thoroughly kind and obliging, and 
alwaj's willing to >nd his help, or to give his advice when 
it was asked for, as it often was. Somehow, I cannot get 
away from the impression of his untiring assiduity. He 
seemed to have alwa3"s a great variety of work in hand — 
work at home and in the office — as if he had caught some- 
thing of the power of toiling from that great German upon 
whose biography he was then engaged. If he was somewhat 
proud of his accomplishments — thinking over the matter 
more, I see that he had a right to be — he had done much, 
and he had done it well, and he was entitled to the indul- 
gence of some complacency. 

" When the rumor came that Mr. Taylor was to be taken 
away from us for a time and advanced to high diplomatic 
honors, I think that we were all as proud of it as he was, 
and felt it to be a recognition, not perhaps made too soon, 
of the importance of journalism. It was something to send 
forth from among ourselves an Ambassador to the German 
Empire, and we were personally grateful to the powers at 
Washington, though we thought them also the obliged part}'. 
In our own way, and in our own place, and with a small 
token of our good- will, we bade Mr. Taylor farewell on that 
April afternoon, and spoke jestingly of the time when, his 
court-dress put off, we should welcome him back to his old 
desk. There came a statelier leave-taking afterward, when 
so many of the best and most distinguished of our citizens 
met to take leave of him in a more formal • manner ; but I 



OTPIER TRIBUTES. 349 

think that he prized our little demonstration quite as higlily, 
and thought of it afterward on the sea and in foreign lands 
quite as often. 

" A man must be judged by what is best in him, b}^ what 
he has really done, and not by the accidents of his 
character. Few Americans have written more, and 
more variously, than Mr. Taylor, and few have written 
better. Those of us who know how he owed nothing to 
chance, how methodical and painstaking he was, how he 
conquered diflSculties which would have dismayed a weaker 
man, are in a position to judge of his merits, and to accord 
to him words of praise, little as he needs them, which have 
a specific meaning." 

James T. Fields, in the tributes published in the 
"Tribune," gave this sketch of the acquaintance and 
friendship existing between Mr. Taylor and himself : — 

''The death of a man like Bayard Taylor, awakens uni- 
versal sorrow. Throughout the land of his birth a tearful 
grief has overspread the nation, and he is mourned every- 
where, far and wide, in America. There never lived a pub- 
lic man of greater bonJwmie, or of a franker disposition. He 
had many honors to bear, but he bore them meekly, and like 
an unspoiled child. Cynicism and vulgar egotism were 
strangers to his truthful nature ; there were no jarring 
chords either in his understanding or his heart, and so he 
became his country's favorite, as well as her pride. 

" Thirty-two years ago, on a bright spring morning, a 



350 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

young man of twentj^-three held out his hand to me, abd in* 
troduced himself as Ba3^ard Taj'lor. We had corresponded 
at intervals since his first Uttle volume was published in 1844, 
but we had never met until then. He had come to Boston, 
rather unexpectedl}^ he said, to see Longfellow, and Holmes, 
and Whipple, and some others, who had expressed an inter- 
est in his 'Views Afoot,' then recently printed in book 
form. No one could possibly look upon the manly 3^oung 
fellow at that time without loving him. He was tall ai.d 
slight, with the bloom of 3'outh manthng a face full of eager, 
joyous expectation. Health of that buoyant nature which 
betokens delight in existence, was visible in every feature of 
the youthful traveller. 

' The fresh air lodged within his cheek 
As light within a cloud.' 

*' We all flocked about him like a swarm of brothers, heartily 
welcoming him to Boston. When we told him how charmed 
we all were with his travels, he blushed like a girl, and tears 
filled hi-s sensitive eyes. ' It is one of the most absorbingly 
interesting books I ever read ! ' cried one of our number, 
heightening the remark with an expletive savoring more ol 
strength that of earl}^ piet3\ Ta3dor looked up, full of happi- 
ness at the opinion so earnestly expressed, and asked, with 
that simple naivete which always belonged to his character, 
'Do you really think so? Well, I am so glad.* 

''Then we began to la3^ out plans for a week's holida3" with 
him ; to-morrow we would go to such a place down the har- 
bor ; next day to another point of interest ; after that we 



OTHER TRIBUTES. 351 

would al] assemble at a supper party in his honor, at Par- 
ker's (at that time a subterranean eating-house in Court 
Street) , and following that festivity we would take him to 
see old Booth in Richard. We went on filling up the seven 
days with our designs upon him, when he protested, with an 
explosive shout of laughter, that he must be back again in 
New York the next day. Then we showered warm exhorta- 
tions upon him to postpone his exit, but he assured us that 
go back he must, for he had promised to do so. Well, then, 
if that were the case, and we saw by his countenance that 
he meant what he said, we must adjourn at once to ' Web- 
ster's,' a famous beefsteak house in those ancient days, and, 
as Whipple facetiously remarked, quoting the old ballad : 

' Put a steak in his inside 
Where the four cross-roads did meet.' 

* ' So thitherward we rollicked along into Washington Street, 
and performed that pleasant duty, Taylor all the while 
brimming over with radiant spirits, his j^oung heart already 
illumined with the delight of recognition and praise. 

"In the afternoon we handed him over to Longfellow, whom 
he was anxious to meet, and who gave him such a welcome 
as he never forgot. In one of the last conversations I had 
with Taylor, a few weeks before he sailed for the Embassy, 
he said, with deep feeling : ' From the first, Longfellow has 
been ^jo me the truest and most affectionate friend that ever 
man had. He alwaj^s gives me courage to go on, and never 
fails to lift me forward into hopeful regions whenever I meet 
him. He is the dearest soul in the world, and ray love for 
bira is unbounded.' 



352 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

"Whittier, Holmes, Emerson, Hawthorne, among many 
others m New England, always rejoiced to see Taj'lor's wel- 
come face returning to us. Whenever he came to lecture in 
Boston or Cambridge, it was the signal for happy dinners 
and merry meetings at each other's houses. His fiftieth birth- 
day Occurring during one of these, visits to Boston, was cele- 
brated by an informal dinner in my own house, at which 
Longfellow proposed his health, and Holmes garlanded him 
with pleasurable words of friendship and praise. 

" When Taylor came here to give his lectures on German 
literature, at the ' Lowell Institute,' the crowd was so great 
that hundreds were unable to gain admittance. Those 
masterly delineations of the genius and character of Goethe, 
Schiller, Klopstock, Lessing, and other famous men of Ger- 
many, will long be remembered here, and we were all look- 
ing forward to no remote period when we should again hear 
his voice on kindred topics in the same place. No discourses 
have ever been listened to in Boston with more enthusiasm, 
or have been oftener referred to with delight, since they were 
delivered. Bayard Taylor was not only honored and re- 
pected here for his genius, — he was everywhere beloved. 
His death saddens our city, and is the absorbing topic in 
every circle." 

Mr. Taylor's body arrived iu New York on the thir- 
teenth day of March, about three months after his death, 
and was received with imposing ceremonies of respect. 
Committees from distinguished citizens and prominent 
associations received the remains at the steamship 



FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 353 

wharf and a large procession followed the elegant 
funeral-car to the City Hall. The coffin was placed in 
the Governor's room in the City Hall, where an ad- 
dress was delivered by the Hon. Algernon S. Sullivan. 
Delegations were present from the Grand Army of the 
Republic ; from the Delta Kappa Epsilon societies ; 
the German singing societies ; from the State Legisla- 
ture ; the National Congress, and hundreds of men 
and women distinguished more or less in literary and 
official life. Salutes were fired from the fort, dirges 
were sung by German associations, flags were placed 
at half-mast, and the immense crowd of people seeking 
admittance to City Hall, showed the esteem in which 
the distinguished minister was held. 

The body lay in state at the City Hall, with a guard 
from the Grand Army of the Republic, until noon of 
the 14th, when the body was removed, amid touch- 
ing and imposing ceremonies, to the railway train 
which conveyed it to Kennett Square. 

There have been but few incidents of American life 
more pathetic and remarkable than the spontaneous 
exhibition of love and admiration by the people of Mr. 
Taylor's native town, when his body was taken there 
for bm^ial. The silent and uncovered crowds, the 
tears, the regrets, the stories of his kindness, the 
honest acts of deference, the noble reception of any 
one who had been his friend, all served to make up a 
most unusual tribute to the memory of a great man. 
In many places the funeral of Mr. Taylor had not 



354 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

attracted the attention which his friends have felt was 
due to his memory. But at his old home, among his 
own kin, in the circle of those who knew him best, old 
and young came forth to do him honor. Aged men 
and women, whose white hairs floated in the chilly 
breezes, and young children, whose hats and bonnets 
were held so modestly behind them, bowed their heads 
as the sombre procession passed them. 

The services at Cedarcroft on the 15th were shoil; 
and simple, being conducted by the Rev. W. H. Fur- 
ness, D. D., after which Dr. Franklin Taylor made a 
brief address. 

At the grave in Longwood Cemetery, about a mile 
and a half from Cedarcroft, there were gathered thou- 
sands of mourning acquaintances, who listened in sol- 
emn silence to the addresses which were there delivered 
by Dr. Furness, and by Mr. Edmund C. Stedman, 
and the reading of the burial service according to the 
rites of the Protestant Episcopal Church, by the Rev. 
H. N. Powers. The pall-bearers consisted of eight 
persons : George H. Boker, of Philadelphia ; Richard 
H. Stoddard, of New York; Edmund C. Stedman, of 
New York; Whitelaw Reid, of New York; J. Taylor 
Cause, of Wilmington, Delaware ; Jacob P. Cox, of 
Kennett; James M. Phillips, of Kennett; Marshall 
Swayne, of Kennett, and Edward Needles of West 
Chester, Pa. Governor Hoj^t of Pennsylvania, a dele- 
gation from the Legislature of Pennsylvania, repre- 
sentatives of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Society, and 



FUNERAL CEREMOklEA. 355 

ki idred associations were present, with a large number 
of friends from distant parts of the country. 

It was an impressive scene. The aged father, the sis- 
ters, the brothers, the officials, and the throng of other 
friends around the open grave ! From that neighbor- 
hood he went forth into life, a frail farmer-boy, less 
promising than many of his playmates. Now, after 
twoscore of years, in which he had made for himself 
friends in every clime, and a name in literature, ora- 
tory and diplomacy, his body is laid to rest amid uni- 
versal grief, and bearing on its coffin-lid the floral 
tributes from the Empress, and from the greatest men 
of Germany, and from the most gifted men and 
women of his own land. 

Beside the grave stood his intimate friend and loved 
companion, Edmund C. Stedman, who, perhaps, more 
than any other living man had enjoyed the deceased 
poet's confidence. It was fitting that he should pay 
the closing tribute to his friend's career. Then a choir 
of neighbors sang a burial ode, the words and music 
being written for the occasion, the former by Mrs. S. 
L. Oberholtzer, and the latter by John E. Sweney. 
Slowly and reverently amid sobs and tears, — a multi- 
tude weeping, — they laid him tenderly in his last 
resting-place, near the grave of his brave brother, and 
beside the remains of his first love. 

The address of Mr. Stedman was nearly as fol- 
lows : — 



356 LIFE OF BAYARD TAYLOR. 

Three mouths have gone since we heard from a distant 
land that the spirit of our comi'ade had departed. His life 
was eager, noble, wide-renowned. It lasted for more than 
half a centur}^, 3'et ceased prematurel}', and we sa}^ "He 
should have died hereafter!" Here, to-daj, at this very 
spot, the mould which held that spirit returns to the self- 
same earth which nurtured it. Here the mortal journepngs 
are forever ended. The seas, the deserts, the mountain- 
ranges, shall be crossed no more ; the jo3^ous eyes are 
veiled ; the near, warm heart can throb no longer ; the stal- 
wart frame has fallen, and henceforth lies at rest. For us 
the record is closed ; but is it ended without a continuance ? 
This is the question, which here, at this moment, in this 
place, so strongly comes to each one of those who were his 
comrades, whom he loved with all his generous nature, to 
whom he was ever stanch and true, for whom he would at 
all times have given all he had, from whom onl}^ his dust 
now can receive the love, the tender utterance, the ceaseless 
remembrance which the}' seek to offer in return. Are the 
travels then in truth forever ended? Shall there be, for our 
brother, no more insatiable thirst for knowledge, no more 
high poetic speech, no more looking toward the stars? For 
one, I try to answer from his own lips, since they so often 
foretokened it. If ever a longing for eternal life, a resolve 
not to be deprived of action, a beautiful and absolute faith 
that the Power which governs all had decreed that these 
should not surcease — if these ever have given a mortal a 
hold on immortaht}', then our Bayard still is hving, though 
above and beyond us. For however dimmed may be the 
vision wherewith some of us strive in vain, whatever our 
hopes, to look behind the veil, for him there was neither 



FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 357 

doubt nor darkness. He could not, would not, tolerate the 
idea of one-sided individuality. I have never known a man 
whose trust in this one thing was so absolutel}' and alwaj^s 
unshaken, or who had a more abiding, sustaining faith in 
the perfection of the universal plan and in the beneficence 
of its Designer. 

Such was his religion, and I say that it was constant and 
most beautiful. Possibly it was something of the Quaker 
breed within him that made him so conscious of the Spirit, 
and so natural and unfailing a believer in direct inspiration. 
In this age of questionings and searchings, how few of 
those who profess the most have his perfect faith in that 
ijnmortality whose promise animates the creeds ! For this 
slone the most rigid may revere his religion, and even with- 
out this his spotless life of purity, philanthropy, heroic 
deeds, has been a model for those who seek to become the 
disciples of whom the Teacher said, "By their fruits ye 
jhall know them." This is the one statement which I de- 
sire to make. This much, at this final place and hour, I am 
moved to aflEirm. Joyous poet, loyal comrade, patient and 
generous brother in toil and song — Farewell ! Farewell ! 




>^i^l\ 






■Y^\ 




"t.ii — *■ — - .t Jk *s\r>.- 




f^-f$l^ 




